Newsroom Stories

Ann Nguyen chose a risky project for her graduate studies at Washington University in St. Louis. A university team had already sifted through 100,000 grains from a meteorite to look for a particular type of stardust — without success. In 2000, Nguyen decided to try again. About 59,000 grains later, her gutsy decision paid off. In the March 5 issue of Science, Nguyen and her advisor, Ernst K. Zinner, Ph.D., research professor of physics and of earth and planetary sciences, both in Arts & Sciences, describe nine specks of silicate stardust — presolar silicate grains — from one of the most primitive meteorites known.

The results of an experimental cross-species transplant suggest the innovative approach might halt type 1 diabetes while greatly reducing the risk of rejection. Click here for more medical articles

Washington University’s Department of Music in Arts & Sciences and the St. Louis Chapter of the American Guild of Organists will present a concert and symposium highlighting the works of French composer Alexandre Guilmant (1837-1911) March 19 and 20. The concert commemorates the immense organ of 10,000 pipes built for Festival Hall, the primary concert venue of the 1904 World’s Fair.

LevitteJean-David Levitte, French Ambassador to the United States, will deliver a lecture on “The United States and France in a World Transformed,” at noon March 13 in the Uncas A. Whitaker Hall auditorium on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis.

South African fortepianist Kristian Bezuidenhout, winner of the Westfield Center for keyboard studies’ prestigious Young Scholar’s Award, will present a fortepiano recital in Washington University’s Karl Umrath Hall Lounge at 8 p.m. Monday, March 15.

The Four Bitchin’ Babes. From left: Suzzy Roche, Camille West, Debi Smith and Sally Fingerett Folk troubadours Christine Lavin and the Four Bitchin’ Babes reunite for a pair of shows at Washington University’s Edison Theatre Friday and Saturday, March 26 and 27. The first evening will feature founding member Christine Lavin joined by the Babes. The second evening will feature the Babes joined by Lavin.

Photo by David Kilper / WUSTL PhotoRecent Washington University graduate Glenn K. Davis reads to children at Ford Elementary School in St. Louis.As President Bush’s struggling No Child Left Behind Act heats up as a presidential campaign issue, the achievement gap in American schools continues to widen. Can we ever hope to close the racial, ethnic and economic gaps in schools? An education researcher at Washington University in St. Louis thinks it is possible — we just need to think of the achievement gap in different terms.

Anthrax is nasty stuff. An environmental engineer at WUSTL uses smart catalysts in his device that can detect the presence of airborne anthrax and disable it.An environmental engineer at Washington University in St. Louis with his doctoral student has patented a device for trapping and deactivating microbial particles. The work is promising in the war on terrorism for deactivating airborne bioagents and bioweapons such as the smallpox virus, anthrax and ricin, and also in routine indoor air ventilation applications such as in buildings and aircraft cabins.

To meet design and cost changes, industry and government are considering clockless computing.Computing royalty, including Ivan Sutherland, the father of computer graphics, and Wesley A. Clark, the designer of the world’s first personal computer, will gather at a computing symposium Friday, March 26th, 2004, from 1:00-5:30 p.m. at Washington University in St. Louis’s Whitaker Hall Auditorium. As part of the University’s 150th anniversary of its founding, participants will honor time by contemplating how computing can evade time as the industry prepares to go clockless.

Strong stitches attach the rotator cuff directly to the shoulder bone.Each year in the United States, nearly 300,000 people have surgery to repair their rotator cuff. The rotator cuff is made up of several muscles that allow us to lift our arms or to rotate them during sports activities such as golf, tennis and swimming. The rotator cuff also is used during lifting, washing windows and working in the garden. In the past, surgical correction of the rotator cuff involved an incision through the deltoid muscle on the outside of the shoulder, a lot of pain for weeks after surgery and a long period of recovery. But Washington University orthopaedic surgeons have begun using a minimally invasive system that eliminates the need for the incision through the muscle and limits the amount of post-operative pain. The system allows surgeons to strengthen the repair with a suturing device that sews the muscle right into bone where it can heal more quickly, with less pain.