Newsroom Stories

Nanostructures called BRIGHTs seek out biomarkers on cells and then beam brightly to reveal their locations. In the tiny gap between the gold skin and the gold core of the nanoparticle, there is an electromagnetic hot spot that lights up the reporter molecules trapped there. BRIGHTs, which shine about 1.7 x 1011 more brightly than isolated Raman reporters, are intended for use in noninvasive bioimaging.

They’ve shaken Shakespeare, humiliated Hollywood and affronted all the great books. Now the Reduced Shakespeare Company—those emperors of editing, those sultans of summary, those bad boys of abbreviation—is back and ready to tackle its most fearsome opponent yet: Santa Claus.

To encourage entrepreneurship, the university’s Bear Cub Fund program is now providing mentors and other hands-on guidance. Initial, one-page applications are due Dec. 10.

Mary Lou’s Mass is like a prayer on stage: a spirited homily rooted in the southern church, an uplifting sermon on life’s trials and ecstasies. On Nov. 30-Dec. 2, students from the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences will perform excerpts from this groundbreaking collaboration between choreographer Alvin Ailey and jazz pianist Mary Lou Williams as part of Rootedness, Mobility and Migration, the 2012 Washington University Dance Theatre concert.

Two Arts & Sciences seniors from Washington University in St. Louis were among 232 U.S. finalists for the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship. They are Madeleine Daepp, an enomics and mathematics student with an interest in agrigultural policy, and Jeremy Pivor, an environmental biology major with a passion for ocean conservation.

The season came to an end last week for three teams — men’s and women’s cross country and women’s soccer — after appearances in the NCAA Tournament.

More students with an autism spectrum disorder gravitate toward science, technology, engineering and math majors in college than other students. But they have low college admission rates because of gender, finances and other barriers, finds a new study, co-authored by Paul Shattuck, PhD, assistant professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.

In the early 20th century, Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso invented Cubism and shook the foundations of Western art. But in the 1930s, as the rise of fascism brought new urgency to questions of aesthetics and politics, Braque’s fractured still lifes and bourgeois interiors remained emphatically inward-looking. Yet Braque’s painting was not as separate from outside events as Braque might have it, argues Georges Braque and the Cubist Still Life, 1928-1945, the first major U.S. museum exhibition dedicated to the artist in 16 years. ​

Washington University contributors helped the United Way of Greater St. Louis surpass its all-time record and raise $72 million to help the poor and disadvantaged throughout the St. Louis metropolitan region. The university community gave more than $691,000, exceeding WUSTL’s goal by $16,000 so far. Employees may sign up for payroll deduction through Dec. 31.

Insights from a genetic condition that causes brain cancer are helping scientists better understand the most common type of brain tumor in children.