Newsroom Stories

Courtesy Missouri Historical Society Photographs and Prints Collections.Lee DeForest (seated) sending wireless telegraph message from the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. Photograph, 1904.April 30, 2004, marks the 100th anniversary of the 1904 World’s Fair, an event that showcased science advancements that startled the imagination a century ago and foretold technology still in place today. The fair was headquartered on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis, where significant scientific developments continue today, most notably at the nation’s second-ranked medical school but also across many science and engineering disciplines.

ICU personnel are instructed in proper placement of catheters to lower infection risk.Because patients in intensive care units (ICUs) are, by definition, in dire health, the consequences of even the slightest medical error can be devastating. Now two quality-improvement studies by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis suggest solutions to two of the most common and dangerous patient safety challenges in ICU patients: restoring normal phosphorus levels and preventing infections related to catheters. The research was a multi-disciplinary effort between physicians, nurses, dietitians and the rest of the surgical ICU team at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. The quality-improvement studies led to dramatic improvements in patient health and safety, and the team believes these initiatives could improve patient health and safety at any ICU in the country.

HarringtonThe uncertain economy of the last few years has some wondering if American innovation and ingenuity is in decline, but not Kenneth Harrington and Robert Skandalaris. Harrington, director of the Skandalaris Entrepreneurship Program at the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis and Skandalaris, founder and Chairman of Noble International Ltd, are collaborating on a book on entrepreneurship and find it alive and well. But in a recent article, they caution that “people, organizations, institutions, and governments that don’t have a strategy to lead in entrepreneurial innovation will be displaced or at serious risk of becoming obsolete.” The Washington University business school launches its 2004 Olin Cup Entrepreneurship Competition this month with special events, speakers, and workshops. Washington University recently received a major grant from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation to expand entrepreneurship education campus-wide.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), car crashes are the leading cause of death for children. Almost 2,000 children age 14 and under are killed in automobile crashes each year and another 280,000 are injured. Proper use of car seats reduces the risk of death significantly — by as much as 71 percent for infants and by about 55 percent for toddlers. The CDC also estimates that 50,000 serious injuries could be prevented and 455 lives saved each year if all children under 5 used safety seats. In spite of the dangers, 40 percent of American children 4 and under routinely ride unrestrained. But Emergency Department physicians at Washington University School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis are trying to change that. They are targeting low income families, training them in proper use of child safety seats and then giving those families gift certificates that can be redeemed for the seats. The Safe and Secure program hopes to cut down on deaths and injuries from car crashes by providing more than 2,000 free car and booster seats to Missouri families who live below the poverty level as determined by Medicaid.

The Sacagawea Golden DollarAs the nation commemorates the 200th anniversary of the 1804-06 Lewis and Clark Expedition, the explorers’ journals, which offer a veritable treasure trove of information, are being scrutinized as never before. Two historians at Washington University in St. Louis say, however, that most scholars studying the journals aren’t familiar with the literature of the time, and therefore don’t thoroughly understand the content. For example, Lewis writes that Sacagawea, the only woman on the expedition, became extremely ill due to her “taking could” (sic). Most reading that passage interpreted it as “taking a cold. The Washington University researchers think that actually she was pregnant again and had a miscarriage because “taking a cold” was a euphemism for pregnancy back then.

Photo courtesy U.S. Army Corps of EngineersBarge traffic makes its way through a lock on the Upper Mississippi.”Our Rivers: A Sustainable Resource?” is the focus of a public education forum that four Washington University faculty will lead as part of a community-wide symposium being held in conjunction with the 5th annual St. Louis Earth Day Celebration, April 22-23. The sustainable rivers program will be held April 22 from 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and will feature Washington University faculty Charles Buescher, professor of environmental engineering, Robert Criss, Ph.D., professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences and William Lowry, Ph.D., professor of political science in Arts & Sciences. The colloquium will provide a background history of the rivers in our region and their various uses in transportation, agriculture, power production, recreation and public water supply.

Poet and Nobel Prize-winning chemist Roald Hoffmann will use examples from chemistry, poetry, painting and ceramics to make a case for an underlying unity of science and the arts.

Scientists have known for years that abnormal activity involving a brain chemical called dopamine is somehow connected to the movements and vocalizations, or tics, associated with Tourette syndrome. Now neuroscience researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found brain activity in these patients is abnormal during memory tasks as well.

U.S. Poet Laureate Louise Glück will present a pair of events April 6 and 8 for the Spring Reading Series 2004, offered by The Writing Program and the Department of English in Arts and Sciences at Washington University.

Washington University in St. Louis is among the world’s leading research institutions. Our more than 2,900 faculty and a significant portion of our more than 13,000 full-time graduate and undergraduate students actively engage in important research activities, including science and other scholarly and creative endeavors. During fiscal year 2003, we received more than $480 million […]