Newsroom Stories

Lecture-based learning can be challenging for students who have difficulties building mental models for the organization of new information, but providing them with diagrams and other supporting material in advance of the lecture can help them overcome these hurdles, suggests new research from Washington University in St. Louis.

The Affordable Care Act has great potential to improve health and health care for people with diabetes, finds a new study led by Derek Brown, PhD, assistant professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.

Monsanto’s proposed move to the U.K. could indicate a corporate inversion strategy. Radhakrishnan (Radha) Gopalan, PhD, associate professor of finance in the Olin Business School, takes a closer look at the numbers.

Images captured in and around the Washington University campuses.

For six consecutive nights, first-year medical student Travis CreveCoeur skipped sleep to direct and edit his class video, “First Year Funk,” a parody of Mark Ronson’s “Uptown Funk.” CreveCoeur thinks the sacrifice was worth it. The video has been viewed 134,000 times and counting.

American Pharoah captured America’s collective heart at the Belmont Stakes this weekend, galloping his way to the first Triple Crown in 37 years. With the June 6 victory, his value is estimated at $30 million. But the winning doesn’t stop there. Patrick Rishe, PhD, director of the Sports Business Program in the Olin Business School, breaks down the future earning potential of the thoroughbred.

What is it with cheating? Cheaters seem to have an immediate advantage over cooperators, but do they have an evolutionary advantage? A study published in Current Biology suggests the benefits of cheating change with its prevalence,in a population. Cheaters may succeed, for example, only when they are rare, and fail when they become so numerous they push out cooperators.

Caitlyn Jenner’s first public appearance on the cover of Vanity Fair has sparked quite a stir. The Twitter account for Jenner, formerly Bruce Jenner, reached 1 million followers in just over four hours. Her story reminds us that even the most personal decisions are linked to broader social conditions, says an expert on later-in-life gender transitions at Washington University in St. Louis.

Victoria J. Fraser, MD, head of the Department of Medicine, was a featured speaker at TEDxStLouisWomen, Thursday, May 28. The presentations were part of TEDWomen, a national conference focused on women and girls as creators and change-makers. Fraser spoke about antibiotic resistance and its evolution into a public health crisis.

Several key provisions of the Patriot Act ended this week, after the Senate let them expire. As a result, the National Security Agency has, at least temporarily, halted the bulk data collection program used to amass phone data for millions of Americans. Neil Richards, JD, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis and one of the country’s foremost academic experts on privacy law, said the fact that expiration of these powers hasn’t provoked mass outrage shows Americans deeply value privacy.