Newsroom Stories

​Joseph Goodman, PhD, associate professor of marketing at Olin Business School and Sarah Lim, doctoral student at Cornell University, say consumers tend to un​derestimate the experiential gift-giving advantage because they’re afraid they don’t know a person well enough to choose a more personal, preference-driven option.

Two Missouri legislators have proposed a bill that would require public universities and colleges to revoke scholarships held by student-athletes who refuse to play, or incite, support or participate in a strike. The proposed law violates the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, says an expert on freedom of speech at Washington University in St. Louis.

An outburst from a distant quasar known as PKS 1441+25 in April of this year gave astronomers at the gamma-ray telescope VERITAS an opportunity to measure the density of the optical “fog” that lies between the quasar and Earth and to deduce the surprising separation of the high-energy emission from the black hole that drives it.

New research, led by Li Ding, PhD, shows that current genome analysis approaches systematically miss detecting a certain type of complex mutation in cancer patients’ tumors. A significant percentage of these complex mutations are found in well-known cancer genes that could be targeted by existing drugs, potentially expanding the number of cancer patients who may benefit.

Few things are as certain as the end of life, so why is it so hard to talk about? That’s a question that many families will be grappling with over the holidays. And while it’s easy to put off dark discussions during festive times, it’s best to have them sooner than later, says Brian Carpenter, a psychologist who studies family relations in later life at Washington University in St. Louis.

Washington University in St. Louis will be well-represented at a pivotal environmental summit, held in India and hosted by the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. Chancellor Mark Wrighton and Pratim Biswas, PhD, the Lucy and Stanley Lopata Professor and Chair of the Department of Energy, Environmental and Chemical Engineering, will each give talks to scientists and researchers gathered in Mumbai for the 5th International Conference on Advances in Energy Research. 

Robert Blankenship, PhD, the Lucille P. Markey Distinguished Professor of Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has won the St. Louis Section of the American Chemical Society’s 2015 Midwest Award.

A new center has been formed at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis to facilitate research that explores the regenerative properties of cells and tissues. The Center of Regenerative Medicine is headquarted in the recently opened 4515 McKinley Research Building, along with several other School of Medicine centers and divisions.

The Performing Arts Department, in collaboration with The Center of Creative Arts (COCA) — one of the nation’s foremost community arts schools — will launch a new Master of Fine Arts in Dance in fall of 2016.

Cultural education through tourism. An app for assisting physical therapy patients. A self-care subscription box. These are a few of the business concepts being launched during this semester’s social entrepreneurship class at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.