Newsroom Stories

Stressbuster volunteers provide free backrubs to students, faculty and staff. The next Stressbusters event is the Stress-Free Zone, 1-3 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 8, at Olin Library. Volunteer Delia Chassaing says massage helps reduce stress, muscle tension and anxiety.

A 60-acre plot in Washington University in St. Louis’ Tyson Research Center has been named a Forest Global Earth Observatory, or ForestGEO. The oak-hickory forest in the rolling foothills of the Ozarks joins a network of 51 long-term forest study sites in 23 countries, including eight others in the United States. Together, the forests, containing roughly 8,500 species and 4.5 million individual trees, comprise the largest, systematically studied network of forest-ecology plots in the world.

Coffee or tea? One of founders of an emerging field that combines economics and brain science reports new insights into decisions in which two choices are equally appealing.

The members of the Stereotypes, Washington University’s all-male a cappella ensemble, compete Friday, Dec. 6, for the title (and the tiara) of the Mr. Stereotype pageant. Music director and junior Kevin Vondrak talks about the group’s repertoire and new four-song EP.

For Amazon’s recently announced drone delivery system to get off the ground, the company will have to solve numerous difficult technological challenges. Chief among them will be increasing battery life, getting the drones to work without a central command and to “think” on their own, and determining what kind of navigation sensors they will use. As complicated as those tasks may be, says a WUSTL robotics expert, they will be much more easily solved than the seemingly more simple issues of regulation and insurance.

The hope was to repair a friendship. The result was a masterwork. On Dec. 9, the St. Louis Symphony’s Bjorn Ranheim and Shawn Weil will join the Washington University Symphony Orchestra for a performance of Johannes Brahms’ “Double Concerto in A for Violin and Cello.”​

David M. Holtzman, MD, and Randall J. Bateman, MD, have been chosen as co-recipients of the Chancellor’s Award for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Washington University in St. Louis.

A new study by researchers at Washington University in St. Louis, University of California, Los Angeles, and Indiana University found that listeners can accurately determine the relative heights of speakers just by listening to them talk. The key clue may be contained in a particular type of sound produced in the lower airways of the lungs, known as a subglottal resonance.

Older adults who have good vision when tested at their eye doctors’ offices may not see as well at home. A new study from researchers at the School of Medicine suggests dim lighting may be the culprit.

Washington University in St. Louis has been recognized as one of the top institutions in the nation for producing Fulbright students for 2013-14. Twelve Fulbright grants were awarded to current or recent WUSTL students for this academic year to fund various international educational exchange endeavors.