Newsroom Stories

​Watch as Washington University in St. Louis students rehearse a Phillipine dance form called tinikling, one of more than a dozen performances scheduled for this year’s Lunar New Year Festival Jan. 30-31. More than 160 students will perform in the annual celebration of Asian art forms and traditions. ​

When it comes to race, too many people still mistake bigotry for science, argues Washington University in St. Louis anthropologist Robert W. Sussman, PhD, in his new book, “The Myth of Race: The Troubling Persistence of an Unscientific Idea.”

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved for testing in people a nanoparticle-based imaging agent jointly developed at the School of Medicine and collaborating institutions. The imaging agent may illuminate dangerous plaque in arteries, and doctors hope to use it to identify patients at high risk of stroke.

Young lovers walking down the aisle may dream of long and healthy lives together, but close friends in the wedding party may have a better sense of whether those wishes will come true, suggests new research on personality and longevity from Washington University in St. Louis.

Given past voter backlashes against natural disaster responses that were considered to be inept, it’s no surprise that New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio and other politicians took aggressive measures to prepare for the megastorm now lashing the East Coast, suggests Andrew Reeves, PhD, an expert on the politics of disaster relief at Washington University in St. Louis.

Reuben Riggs, a senior in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, says the fight for social justice is the foundation of a liberal arts education and he has embraced that fight in light of events in Ferguson in 2014. “To know that and not go out and engage when it’s happening on my doorstep would go against everything I believe in,” said Riggs, who also is an Ervin and a Civic Scholar.

Questions surrounding the divisive and pressing civil rights concern of marriage equality will be covered by a panel of Republican advocates, including Meghan McCain, for the next Assembly Series program. “Marriage Equality and the GOP,” will take place at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 3, in Graham Chapel on the Danforth Campus of Washington University in St. Louis.

With the scholarship and expertise of university scholars as a backdrop, the Washington University community will come together to explore the important issues of race and ethnicity at a universitywide event to be held Thursday and Friday, Feb. 5 and 6.

The Green Monday movement, a growing global effort to urge consumers to consider how their food choices affect public health and the environment, is coming to Washington University. Sponsored by the Office of Sustainability, Dining Services and food service partners Bon Appétit and Aramark, the program will ask students, faculty and staff to pledge to Green Monday by eating vegetarian one day a week.

A research team including Elijah Thimsen, PhD, assistant professor of energy, environmental & chemical engineering in the School of Engineering & Applied Science, has developed a technique to increase the performance and electrical conductivity of thin films used to print solar cells from inks.