Newsroom Stories

p, , {margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Cambria;} div.WordSection1 {page:WordSection1;} Jeffrey G. Trzeciak, university librarian at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, has been named university librarian at Washington University in St. Louis, effective July 1, 2012. Trzeciak replaces Shirley K. Baker, vice chancellor for scholarly resources and dean of University Libraries, who will retire after 23 years of service to WUSTL on June 30, 2012.

Oh, for a bit of wrought iron. Using tried-and-true triangular trusses, Lesley Olson (right), a junior in chemical engineering in the School of Engineering & Applied Science, helps high school girls compete to erect the tallest marshmallow and toothpick tower during Engineering Olympics Feb. 25, the final day of EnWeek. The week, intended to inspire current and future engineers, began Feb. 19 with a variety of activities intended to make increase awareness in engineering as a profession.

How is it that an insect can remake itself so completely that it appears to be a different creature altogether, not just once, but several times in its lifetime? Working with fruit flies, a team led by Ian and Dianne Duncan of Washington University in St. Louis found that genes whose expression is induced by pulses of steroid hormone are key to these transformations. A similar mechanism may underlie  puberty — the human analog of metamorphosis.

The prevailing model for planetary accretion assumes that the Solar System’s planets formed in an extremely hot, two-dimensional disk of gas and dust, post-dating the Sun. In the March issue of Planetary and Space Science, two scientists at Washington University in St. Louis propose a radically different model, in which collapse takes place in a cold, three-dimensional dust cloud.

Five student-athletes earned individual University Athletic Association titles to lead the Bears to a sweep of the men’s and women’s team conference championships Feb. 26 at the New Balance Track & Field Center in New York. Updates also included on men’s and women’s basketball season finales; swimming and diving; men’s tennis; and the opening series of the baseball season.

The current controversy over the Barack Obama administration’s birth control policy is not, contrary to some arguments, a matter of constitutional law, says Gregory P. Magarian, JD, constitutional law expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. It is however, a matter of Constitutional principle, Magarian says.

Not all viruses make us sick. But which ones are friends and which ones are foes? Researchers, led by Gregory Storch, MD, at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have received a five-year, $3.3 million grant to study children with weakened immune systems to identify the viruses that make children sick.

Wang Shu has won the 2012 Pritzker Architecture Prize, making him the first Chinese citizen to receive what is generally considered architecture’s highest honor. Thomas J. Pritzker, chairman of The Hyatt Foundation, which sponsors the $100,000 prize, made the announcement Monday, Feb. 27. Two days later, students and faculty in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts will be among the first to congratulate Shu when the architect discusses his work for the school’s Public Lecture Series.

Work at Washington University in St. Louis, just published in EcoHealth, shows that the ecology of fear, like other concepts from predator-prey theory, also extends to parasites. Raccoons and squirrels would give up food, the study demonstrated, if the area was infested with larval ticks. At some level, they are weighing the value of the abandoned food against the risk of being parasitized.

Vu Nguyen, who joined the Department of Music in Arts & Sciences last fall as director of winds, will conduct the WUSTL Wind Ensemble in a free concert at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 28, at the 560 Music Center. The performance will feature music by Tielman Susato, Morten Lauridsen, Johann Sebastian Bach, W. Francis McBeth and William Schuman.