Newsroom Stories

As senior class president, Jason Green will give today’s student Commencement address; “I felt like I belonged here,” he says.

campus watch

Historic Francis Field is undergoing its first major renovation in nearly 20 years; the entire stadium will be resurfaced.

The PEN/Spielvogel-Diamonstein Award “is especially gratifying because it reflects the judgment of my fellow essayists,” he said.

Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton is presented with a replica of William Greenleaf Eliot’s star during a ceremony in the University City Loop.

AlbrightMadeleine Albright, former U.S. secretary of state, will give the 2003 Commencement address at Washington University in St. Louis.

Viewers will be treated to a lunar eclipse May 15th.A total lunar eclipse of the moon will be visible from across North America late Thursday, but whether the moon turns red depends on the presence of tiny particles in the Earth’s upper atmosphere, says Richard Heuermann, Outreach Program Coordinator in the University’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences.

WillAn astrophysicist at Washington University in St. Louis is disputing the claim that measurements of light bending are useful for determining the speed of gravity.

Washington University students and recent graduates in Arts & Sciences have made an impressive showing in their annual quest for prestigious national scholarships and fellowships, including four recipients of the 2003 Andrew W. Mellon Fellowships in Humanistic Studies. “It’s an honor for any institution to place a student in the Mellon program and getting four of these awards in one year is fairly amazing,” said Dirk M. Killen, Ph.D., assistant dean, academic coordinator and fellowships adviser in Arts & Sciences.

Genetic factors influence nicotine withdrawal symptoms and make it difficult for some smokers to quit.Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have uncovered evidence linking genetic influences to nicotine withdrawal symptoms that commonly occur when a smoker attempts to quit. Their findings also indicate that genetic factors both related and unrelated to nicotine withdrawal may affect attempts to quit smoking. The team, led by Hong Xian, Ph.D., research assistant professor of medicine at Washington University School of Medicine and researcher at the St. Louis Veterans Affairs Medical Center, found that genetic influences accounted for 54 percent of failures to quit smoking, and that about one-third of such failures could be attributed to the severity of nicotine withdrawal symptoms.