Newsroom Stories

An outdoor chess park. Cargo containers transformed into compact restaurants. A sustainable urban farm. On April 11, Washington University in St. Louis and the City of St. Louis will announce which of these or several other concepts will win the inaugural Sustainable Land Lab Competition, the first of its kind in St. Louis.

The offices of Sustainability and Parking and Transportation challenge the WUSTL community to try alternative means of commuting to campus during Car-free Month, April 1-24. The teams with highest number of car-free trips and greatest number of car-free miles will win awards. April 12 is the last day to register for the Car-free Challenge.

Named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by TIME Magazine, Cory A. Booker, the mayor of Newark, N.J., has been selected to give the 2013 Commencement address at Washington University in St. Louis, according to Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton. The university’s 152nd Commencement ceremony will begin at 8:30 a.m. Friday, May 17, in Brookings Quadrangle.​

A team of four WUSTL students, including sophmores, Grace Kuo and Amy Patterson, shown to left accepting a trophy, won the College Nationals in the Rube Goldberg Machine Contest on March 30. Click here for a video of a rolling ball bearing setting off a chain reaction in “Rube Goldberg’s office” that eventually drop a hammer on a nail–the assigned task.

Why is it so hard for some people to resist the least little temptation, while others seem to possess incredible patience, passing up immediate gratification for a greater long-term good? The answer, suggests a new study from Washington University in St. Louis, is that patient people focus on future rewards in a way that makes the waiting process seem much more pleasurable.

Author and political scientist Cathy Cohen studies American politics and particularly how they affect African-Americans, women and the LGBTQ community – never ignoring the intersections between these identity categories. She will be on campus April 9 to give a lecture titled “Race, Sex and Neoliberalism in the Age of Obama.”

Ronald Levin, JD, the William R. Orthwein Distinguished Professor of Law, has been elected to the American Law Institute (ALI), a national independent organization that focuses on producing scholarly work to clarify and modernize the law. Membership in the ALI is based on professional achievement and a demonstrated interest in improving the law. ALI will also honor the Hon. William H. Webster, JD ’49, with the Henry J. Friendly Medal. One of the ALI’s highest honors, the medal is awarded periodically to individuals who have made significant contributions to the law.

Scientists have decoded the genome of the western painted turtle, one of the most abundant turtles on Earth, finding clues to their longevity and ability to survive without oxygen during long winters spent hibernating in ice-covered ponds.

More than 175 WUSTL volunteers recently did prep work at Gateway STEM High School — priming and taping walls, organizing supplies and competing other tasks. They cleared the way for an even larger undertaking this weekend during the Clinton Global Initiative University meeting. Approximately 800 conference delegates will perform service projects at the school. ​

A new study raises the intriguing possibility that drugs prescribed to lower cholesterol may be effective against macular degeneration, a blinding eye disease. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that age-related macular degeneration shares a common link with atherosclerosis. Both problems have the same underlying defect: the inability to remove a buildup of fat and cholesterol.