Newsroom Stories

The first time you don a new pair of bifocals, what you perceive visually and what your hand does may be very different.Marvin Gaye wailed in the ’60s hit “Heard it through the Grapevine,” that we’re supposed to believe just half of what we see. But a new collaborative study involving a biomedical engineer at Washington University in St. Louis and neurobiologists at the University of Pittsburgh shows that sometimes you can’t believe anything that you see. More importantly, the researchers have identified areas of the brain where what we’re actually doing (reality) and what we think we’re doing (illusion, or perception) are processed.

A biography of St. Patrick is due out just in time for March 17.St. Patrick’s Day has become an excuse for Americans of all ethnic backgrounds to break out the green and head to their local parade or pub and imbibe in Irish beer and corned beef and cabbage. And just in time for this year’s celebration of St. Patrick’s feast day comes a book that will have many — even the true Irish — saying, “I didn’t know that” about Ireland’s beloved patron saint. Many of the stories about St. Patrick that have been passed down for generations, including the one about him ridding Ireland of its snakes, are false, says an expert in Celtic and classical studies at Washington University in St. Louis in a book being released in early March.

Faddis and colleagues use a catheter with a magnet at its tip combined with a magnetic guidance system machine to help guide the magnetic catheter as it moves inside the heart.Thanks to advances in cardiology and in magnetic technology, it’s now possible to use magnetic fields to guide tools used to treat certain heart rhythm problems. Cardiologists can treat heart rhythm abnormalities without surgery by using catheters to deliver treatment. Catheters are long, narrow tubes that are run from the groin to the heart via blood vessels using X-ray images for guidance. A team at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has found that the Magnetic Navigation System (MNS) developed by Stereotaxis Inc. allows them to guide catheters within the heart more accurately. Instead of a standard design, MNS catheters contain a magnetic tip. In the same way the needle on a compass aligns itself with the direction of the Earth’s magnetic field, the catheter’s magnetic tip aligns itself with a magnetic field surrounding the patient and allows physicians to more easily guide the catheter in order to locate and treat problem areas in the heart.

The European Union (EU) will impose trade sanctions on billions of dollars of U.S. goods starting March 1 if Congress fails to repeal an export subsidy ruled illegal by the World Trade Organization (WTO). The export subsidy provision — known as the “extraterritorial income” deduction — gives U.S. companies a big leg up on competitors, but is paid for by the U.S. taxpayer, said William J. Streeter, a professor of international business at the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis. Streeter says legislation to repeal the export subsidy that has yet to be passed by Congress is projected to save U.S. taxpayers $80 billion over the next decade, but will be offset by lower corporate taxes on the earnings of U.S. firms abroad.

Dr. James Lowe in the operating room.Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but plastic and reconstructive surgeons at Washington University School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis are trying to learn the basics of aesthetic beauty in various ethnic groups. When plastic surgeons operate, they don’t want to make African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans and other groups look the same. Rather, they hope to preserve ethnicity while at the same time restoring or enhancing beauty. The Washington University team is one of only a handful worldwide that is scientifically studying ways to preserve ethnicity in plastic surgery procedures, and as more people from different ethnic backgrounds seek plastic surgery, defining aesthetic attractiveness in various ethnic groups is becoming more important.

A protein known as Pgp has pumped an imaging agent that glows away from a tumor on the lower right of this mouse.Oncologists dread the appearance of MDR1 P-glycoprotein (Pgp), a protein found on the surface of drug-resistant cancers that pumps away chemotherapy treatments. Now researchers have discovered Pgp also rids cells of a bioluminescent agent used in imaging research. According to David Piwnica-Worms, M.D., Ph.D., professor of molecular biology and pharmacology and of radiology and director of Washington University’s Molecular Imaging Center, the finding means scientists now have a direct, real-time method for assessing treatments designed to block drug resistance in animal models of cancer because if Pgp is present, the imaging agent is expelled from cells, it’s also likely that those cells will be resistant to chemotherapy. On the other hand, the discovery also means basic researchers, who make frequent use of the luminescent imaging agent (derived from a sea pansy or soft coral), have to make sure that what they are seeing isn’t being affected by interactions with Pgp.

Photo by Joe Angeles / WUSTL PhotoThe Truster hand-held “Emotion Reader.”Voice-stress analysis, an alternative to the polygraph as a method for lie detection, is already widely used in police and insurance fraud investigations. Now, however, it is being touted as a powerful and effective tool for an array of new applications — everything from screening potential terrorists in the nation’s airports to catching wayward spouses in messy marital disputes. Despite its booming popularity, recent federally sponsored studies have found little evidence that existing voice-stress technologies are capable of consistently detecting lies and deceptions. “You could have gotten better results by flipping a coin,” says Washington University in St. Louis psychologist Mitchell S. Sommers, lead investigator on a recent voice-stress study.

Photo courtesy of The OASIS InstituteVolunteering can have a positive effect on the overall well-being of older Americans.Looking to chase away the winter blues? Interested in staying active after retirement? Need a boost to your health? Try volunteering at your church or a neighborhood organization for a few hours a week — it could do you a world of good. Just two hours of volunteering a week can have a positive effect on the overall well-being of older Americans, according to a study from the George Warren Brown (GWB) School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis. The researchers found that older adults who volunteered had better assessments than non-volunteers on three measures of well-being: daily functioning, self-rated health and self-rated depression.

Determining the right pricing strategy can make or break the overall profitability of a firm. One such strategy, dynamic pricing, long practiced in the airline and hotel industries, is showing promise and profitability in the world of retail. When applied to products sold over a short sales season—new toys, skiwear, and the like— dynamic pricing can boost profits for a firm, according to research recently conducted by two professors at the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis.

Coached by educators who were anxious to prove that colleges and universities were military assets, the War Department in the spring and summer of 1918 laid plans for the organization of the Student’s Army Training Corps. Able-bodied men from ages 18-21 with a high-school education could seek admission to any college or university on the […]