Newsroom Stories

While political and judicial rhetoric around unions has softened in recent years, images of the past still haunt labor, argue two Washington University in St. Louis researchers. In “Re-Assembling Labor,” published online Nov. 5 in Social Science Research Network, the authors seek to draw the lessons of assembly into contemporary labor law — to re-assemble labor law around the theory and doctrine of assembly that formed its early core.

With Republicans gaining control of Congress after the midterm elections, Speaker of the House John Boehner insists that President Barack Obama could get “burned” if he uses executive action to move forward on immigration reform during the remainder of his presidency. Obama is well within his rights to proceed with the temporary measures he is considering, says an immigration law expert at Washington University in St. Louis.

Allyson R. Zazulia, MD, is the new associate dean for continuing medical education (CME) at the School of Medicine. In her new role, Zazulia will oversee and administer learning opportunities for practicing physicians. This includes maintaining accreditation and developing new CME programs.

The Brown School Policy Forum at Washington University in St. Louis presents “The University, the Community, and Race” at 4 p.m. Monday, Nov. 10, in Brown Hall’s Brown Lounge. The talk, part of the “Ferguson and Beyond” lecture series, will be given by Larry E. Davis, PhD, dean of the School of Social Work at the University of Pittsburgh and director and founder of its Center on Race and Social Problems. 

Washington University’s Bear Cub grant program helps researchers make the leap from bench scientists to budding entrepreneurs. The application deadline is Nov. 30.

Andrew Jackson stalks the stage in leather jeans. A power chord fills the air. Jackson was seventh president of the United States but this isn’t history class — it’s “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson,” an irreverent romp through the American political id. The production from the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis takes place Nov. 14-23.

Today’s freshmen students have a 50 percent chance of living to see their 100th birthdays. They are in the middle of a demographic revolution that will shape every aspect of their lives. A new interdisciplinary course for freshmen introduced this fall, “When I’m Sixty-Four: Transforming Your Future,” aims to prepare students for this aging revolution and to encourage them to examine their present and future lives in more detail.

A new center at the School of Medicine aims to tackle the challenges of feeding the world’s rapidly expanding population and improving global health by linking efforts to develop more nutritious foods with discoveries gleaned from the gut microbiome.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has boosted funding for the first large-scale clinical trial aimed at identifying drugs to stop or slow Alzheimer’s disease in people who are destined to get it. The trial is led by Randall Bateman, MD.

This August, a consortium of 65 scientists announced in the journal Science that they have so far found seven probable but not confirmed interstellar dust specks in a collector returned to Earth by the Stardust spacecraft in 2006. Undergraduate students at Washington University in St. Louis found three of the seven specks of dust.