Newsroom Stories

Researchers from Washington University in St. Louis have solved a mystery: How did arsenic show up in aquifer water that had been triple purified? Dissolved organic compounds.

Many questions remain following the Jan. 3 death of Qassem Soleimani and Iran’s potential retaliation. Chief among them: Was the strike legal? “Unless there is much more to the story than meets the eye, the answer seems to be no,” said Leila Sadat, director of the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute and an expert on international criminal law.

Political scientist David Carter co-authored a study of more than 50 barriers erected around the world, most of which have emerged since 2001. He and his co-author at the University of Chicago found that legal trade plummets up to 31% as a result of constructing a wall between two neighboring countries.

Some economic observers continue to warn about signs of a potential U.S. recession. Glenn MacDonald, the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics and Strategy at Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis, says many signs aren’t particularly reliable — but keep an eye on housing starts.

Chemists in Arts & Sciences have re-engineered one of nature’s solar cells to drive electrons down an alternate path. This work advances the understanding of the earliest light-driven events of photosynthesis and is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Patricia Weisensee, a mechanical engineer in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, combined properties similar to those seen in a lotus leaf with those found on rose petals to find a more efficient way for droplets to evaporate from a surface.

A new study, led by the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, suggests proton therapy is as effective as traditional X-ray radiation therapy while causing fewer serious side effects.

A study from the School of Medicine may help explain why previous attempts to develop a staph vaccine have failed, while also suggesting a new approach to vaccine design that focuses on activating an untapped set of immune cells.

In celebration of another year of change and discovery at Washington University in St. Louis, the Source shares some of its most-read stories of 2019.

New Arts & Sciences research finds that chimpanzees that use a multi-step process and complex tools to gather termites are more likely to share tools with novices. The study helps illuminate chimpanzees’ capacity for prosocial — or helping — behavior, a quality that has been recognized for its potential role in the evolution of human cultural abilities.