Newsroom Stories

A new study suggests that health insurance exchanges, a key provision of the Affordable Care Act passed in 2010, may need to be monitored by policymakers to make sure there is sufficient competition between private insurance plans. In the study, published in Health Affairs, Timothy McBride, PhD, professor and associate dean for public health at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, examined the insurance premiums, availability of plans and enrollment levels under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP). “From its inception, the health reform legislation used the structure of the FEHBP to guide the design of these exchanges,” McBride says.

Scientists at Washington University in St. Louis have found a gene that seems to unleash the courtship ritual in male fruit flies. Males missing this gene are capable of courtship; they just have trouble getting started. Usually male fruit flies are “highly sexed,” to the point that they will court and mount “perfumed dummies,” decapitated females coated in waxy pheromones.

A new model for understanding how nerve cells in the brain control movement may help unlock the secrets of the motor cortex, a critical region that has long resisted scientists’ efforts to understand it, researchers report June 3 in Nature.

​With more than $5 million in new grants from Susan G. Komen for the Cure, Washington University scientists at the Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center are developing innovative treatments in the fight against breast cancer.

The economic model of law schools is broken, says Brian Z. Tamanaha, JD, JSD, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis and author of the new book, Failing Law Schools, published by the University of Chicago Press. “The best example to demonstrate this is that in 2010, the average debt of law students was $100,000 and the median salary was $63,000 — so a person who obtains the median salary cannot make the monthly payments on the average debt,” he says. “This involves thousands of law students. For the majority of law students, the cost of obtaining a law degree and the economic return on a law degree are out of whack.”

Parkway South High School senior Will Mertz explains the design of his team’s custom-built hand glider to Chris Kroeger, associate dean for students in the School of Engineering & Applied Science, during the Boeing Engineering Challenge May 4 in the Athletic Complex Field House. Mertz was among some 80 area high school students in 24 teams competing in the Boeing Challenge to determine which team’s glider had the farthest flight, straightest path, longest hang time or highest quality of flight.

Poor Jerome. A talented young artist, he escapes high school with earnest dreams and Picasso posters only to founder on the rocks of a small East Coast art school. So begins Art School Confidential, the withering comedy by writer Dan Clowes and director Terry Zwigoff. On Friday, June 8, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will present a free outdoor screening of Art School Confidential as part of its summer Friday Nights at the Kemper series.

A new study shows the same gene variations that make it difficult to stop smoking also increase the likelihood that heavy smokers will respond to nicotine-replacement therapy and drugs that thwart cravings. The finding suggests it may one day be possible to predict which patients are most likely to benefit from drug treatments for nicotine addiction.

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital–Washington University Pediatric Cancer Genome Project has announced the largest release to date of comprehensive human cancer genome data for free access by the global scientific community.

Senior Erica Jackey led five individual All-Americans for the track & field teams at the NCAA Division III Men’s and Women’s Outdoor Track & Field Championships May 24-26 in Claremont, Calif. Updates also included on men’s and women’s tennis, women’s crew and the Director’s Cup standings.