Newsroom Stories

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.

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.

Inflammatory bowel diseases are associated with a decrease in the diversity of bacteria in the gut, but a new study led by researchers at the School of Medicine has linked these same illnesses to an increase in the diversity of viruses.

A new tool kit for dissemination and implementation, developed by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute in Washington, D.C., prominently features the work of several university faculty members, including the groundbreaking 2012 book, “Dissemination and Implementation Research in Health: Translating Science to Practice.”

Analyzing every marijuana-related Twitter message sent during a one-month period in early 2014, researchers at the School of Medicine have found that the “Twitterverse” is a pot-friendly place. In that time, more than 7 million tweets referenced marijuana, with 15 times as many pro-pot tweets sent as anti-pot tweets.

The Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts will launch its spring Public Lecture Series with talks by architect Javier Maroto (Jan. 26) and artist Carrie Mae Weems (Feb. 2). Weems is a 2013 recipient of the MacArthur “genius award.” Her “Untitled (Colored People Grid)” recently was acquired by the university’s Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum.