Newsroom Stories

By blending their expertise, two materials science engineers at Washington University in St. Louis changed the electronic properties of new class of materials — just by exposing it to light.

With a one-year grant from Washington University’s International Center for Advanced Renewable Energy and Sustainability (I-CARES), researchers at Washington University in St. Louis plan to use some high-tech methods to better understand the processes, mechanics and interfaces that plants use to move iron from the soil, through water and into the plant.

The seas have risen and covered the earth. A few soaked survivors cling to mountaintops and tall buildings. So begin The Adventures of Alvin Sputnik: Deep Sea Explorer, an inventive, heartwarming and visually spectacular tale by Australia’s Tim Watts. On Oct. 5, this acclaimed one-man-show, part environmental parable, part Orpheus and Eurydice, will launch Edison’s ovations for young people series.

The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts and the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts have selected the collaborative firm Freecell Architecture as winner of PXSTL. The $50,000 urban design competition winner will create a temporary space for outdoor performances in Grand Center beginning in spring 2014.

Deeply concerned about an “innovation deficit” that is threatening the nation’s economic growth, Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton and Timothy M. Wolfe, president of the University of Missouri System, sent a joint letter last month to Missouri’s U.S. congressional delegation urging their support in helping close this innovation gap. Wrighton and Wolfe also  joined more than 160 university presidents and chancellors in signing an open letter July 31 to President Obama and the U.S. Congress asking them to restore federal investments in higher education and research.

By passing surgical instruments through a patient’s mouth, School of Medicine doctors have corrected a problem that prevented a woman from easily swallowing food and liquids. The operation is one of the first of its kind in the region performed through a natural opening in the body rather than an incision. Pictured is the surgical knife (blue) in the esophagus.

Washington University media specialist Brian Cohen loved music festivals so much that he created one here in St. Louis. Loufest features indie rock’s top acts including Wilco, the Killers, Alabama Shakes and the National. This year’s event runs Sept. 7-8 in Forest Park.

A panel discussion, titled “Conversations on Gender and Blackness in the Age of Trayvon Martin,” will open WUSTL’s African and African-American Studies fall colloquium series at 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 6, in the Women’s Building Formal Lounge. WUSTL faculty will lead the discussion, which includes a coffee reception at 10 a.m.

Researchers have identified the mechanism by which a specific sirtuin protein called Sirt1 (shown in green) operates in the brain to bring about a significant delay in aging and an increase in longevity.

For many firms, losing significant revenue and profit to employee theft has been a cost of doing business. But a new study from Washington University in St. Louis finds that information technology monitoring is strikingly effective in reducing theft and fraud, especially in the restaurant industry.