Graduated driving laws reduce teen drunk driving

State laws that limit driving privileges for teens have reduced the incidence of drinking and driving among the nation’s youngest licensees, according to a new study from researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Teens comprise less than 5 percent of licensed drivers in the country, but they account for roughly 20 percent of motor vehicle crashes.

Amazingly mathematical music

Math and music might seem a strange combination to some. Certainly many famous performers are able to bring audiences to their feet without once thinking about ratios or anything else overtly mathematical. But David Wright, chairman of the mathematics department at Washington University in St. Louis, always has been gifted with an unusual, even eerie, ability to hear both the music and the math simultaneously.

Heavy lifting

Workers prepare to place a new MRI scanner into the East Building at the School of Medicine June 11. The 18,000-pound scanner will be used for the Human Connectome Project, a research study that will trace the anatomical and functional connections between different regions of the brain’s gray matter.

City youth help St. Louis Zoo, WUSTL scientists study box turtles

Sixteen St. Louis youth will be in Forest Park on June 13 tracking box turtles, fitted with telemetry devices — all to help with a project aimed at studying box turtle movements and their health. The 12- and 13-year-olds are participating in a pilot study designed by scientists from the Saint Louis Zoo and Washington University in St. Louis to document box turtle movements and their health status in urban and rural areas in and around St. Louis.

Timing, duration of biochemical bugle call critical for fighting viruses

Researchers have identified the primary player of the biochemical bugle call that musters the body’s defenders against viral infection. Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have shown that a key molecule, MDA5, is essential for producing enough interferon (the bugle call) to rally virus-fighting cells during certain viral infections.

Schaal wins AIBS Distinguished Scientist Award

The American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) honored Barbara Schaal, PhD, the Mary-Dell Chilton Distinguished Professor in the Department of Biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, with the 2011-12 AIBS Distinguished Scientist Award June 1.
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