Newsroom Stories

Renowned economists will gather Monday, May 20, at the university to pay tribute to Murray Weidenbaum, founder and honorary chairman of the Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government, and Public Policy, in a forum tailor-made to highlight his life-long accomplishments. A highly influential economist and policy adviser, Weidenbaum has a legacy in the academic and governmental realms that began in the early 1960s.

The Supreme Court’s unanimous opinion in Bowman v. Monsanto holds that farmers who lawfully obtain Monsanto’s patented, genetically modified soybeans do not have a right to plant those soybeans and grow a new crop of soybeans without Monsanto’s permission. “The Court closed a potential loophole in Monsanto’s long-standing business model, prevents Monsanto’s customers from setting up ‘farm-factories’ for producing soybeans that could be sold in competition with Monsanto’s soybeans, and it enables Monsanto to continue to earn a reasonable profit on its patented technology,” says Kevin Collins, JD, patent law expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis

What you see often depends on where you stand. For Sarah Theis, a senior in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, this simple truth served as starting point for A Play of Perception. Now installed in Mooney Park, the sculpture is one of five featured in this year’s University City Sculpture Series.

On Friday, May 10, WUSTL Dining Services offered graduating seniors the chance to savor and sample their favorite dishes from their four years on campus. Held in the Danforth University Center and part of Senior Week, the event featured a “Taste of WUSTL Dining Services” with five stations of fare from Holmes Lounge, the DUC, South Forty, the Village and the Bakery.

​Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton presented this year’s Jane and Whitney Harris St. Louis Community Service Award to Stephen and Kimmy Brauer for their generous and enduring commitment to St. Louis-area organizations that provide critical support to the region. Pictured are Kimmy Brauer and Wrighton.

Washington University alumnus Mark Wronkiewicz (BS ’12) developed BrainCopter, one of the first brain-controlled applications for the iPad, while studying biomedical engineering at the university. His mentor, the School of Medicine’s Eric Leuthardt, MD, tries the application, which challenges players to use their thoughts to manipulate a flying brain icon past obstacles.

High school students competed at the annual Boeing Engineering Challenge at the WU Field House May 3. About 100 area high school students from six school districts on 25 teams visited the WUSTL campus to take part in the Boeing Challenge. The teams competed to determine which glider had the farthest flight, straightest path, longest hang time or highest quality of flight. Pictured are Eureka High School students who built a glider.

Many medical conditions destroy nerve axons, the long wires that transmit signals to other parts of the body. Now, researchers have found a way the body can remove injured axons, identifying a potential target for new drugs that could prevent the inappropriate loss of axons and maintain nerve function.

Twitter is proving to be an effective tool for local health departments in disseminating health information — especially in promoting specific health behaviors. The latest study, led by Jenine K. Harris, PhD, assistant professor at the Brown School, focused on diabetes, a disease that may affect an estimated one-third of U.S. adults by 2050. “We focused on diabetes first, both because of increasing diabetes rates,” Harris says, “and also because people living with diabetes tend to use online health-related resources at a fairly high rate and are an audience already online and on social media.”

Andrew D. Martin, PhD, vice dean at Washington University School of Law, recently was installed as the Charles Nagel Chair of Constitutional Law and Political Science.