Newsroom Stories

Michael Les Benedict, a professor of history at the Moritz School of Law at Ohio State University, is an authority on Anglo-American constitutional and legal history, the history of civil rights and liberties, and the federal system. Benedict will present “The People Themselves: The Constitutional Responsibility of the American People” at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, February 11 in Graham Chapel.

McClatchyPoet and Essayist J.D. McClatchy will read from his work at 8 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 19, for The Writing Program Reading Series at Washington University in St. Louis.

Super Bowl XXXVIII is over, but the Super Bowl ads — which cost a cool $2.3 million for a 30-second ad — are still battling it out. For the fourth year in a row, MBA students and faculty at the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis critiqued and ranked the Super Bowl ads during the big game with veteran advertising executives. This year, the Olin MBA students huddled with senior ad execs from the Leo Burnett agency. But expectations were dashed as most of the Super Bowl ads fell flat. Click here to view the article on the Super Advertising Bowl from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

To some people, the Super Bowl is a football game. To others, it’s a marketing derby. “Careers are made, and careers are ended, on these commercials we’re about to see,” said Lewis Williams, a senior vice president, creative director, at Leo Burnett Worldwide Inc., a Chicago-based advertising agency. Williams was addressing more than 100 attendees of the fourth annual “Super Advertising Bowl” at Washington University’s Olin School of Business while Sunday’s game was starting on a giant screen above him. Every year, MBA students, their friends, Washington U. faculty and ad execs like Williams gather to rank Super Bowl ads. During halftime, Advertising Bowl participants vote for their favorite commercials.

Little is understood about how depression makes people feel sad, but neuroscientists do know that the brain chemical serotonin is involved. School of Medicine researchers studied 46 people with active depression and compared positron emission tomography (PET) scans of their brains to scans from 29 people who were not depressed. The team was measuring levels of a particular type of serotonin receptor called the 5-HT2A receptor.

The following incidents were reported to University Police Jan. 21-27. Readers with information that could assist in investigating these incidents are urged to call 935-5555. This information is provided as a public service to promote safety awareness and is available on the University Police Web site at police.wustl.edu. Jan. 22 7:43 p.m. — A person […]

Growing up practically next door to the National Institutes of Health, Alexander W. Dromerick, M.D., became fascinated with science at a young age. But it wasn’t long before he realized that the people behind the science are what ultimately motivate him. His commitment to patient care was further reinforced by his own experience as a […]

Fumihiko Maki, Krzysztof Wodiczko and Rachel Whiteread will headline the Washington University School of Architecture’s weekly Monday Night Lecture Series this spring.

Photo by David KilperProfessor Losos displays lab mascot, Morton, an Australian-bearded dragon.As professor of biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University, Losos uses lizards to integrate questions of ecology and evolution. He seeks to better understand how organisms survive in their present-day environments, how they’ve changed over time to fit into those environments, and how they’re continuing to change. “We can’t go back in time,” Losos says, “but we can see what happens today.” And, if one sees well enough, one can extrapolate back to understand how similar changes have occurred over millions of years.

Continuing Washington University’s yearlong Sesquicentennial Environmental Initiative, the final set of colloquia will cover significant issues such as tackling childhood lead poisoning, building a sustainable environment in plant sciences, understanding the effect of aerosols in our air; creating ecological and economically viable structures; and understanding how research universities can impact environmental education and public policy.