Newsroom Stories

Providing clues to deafness, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a gene that is required for proper development of the mouse inner ear. In humans, this gene, known as FGF20, is located in a portion of the genome that has been associated with inherited deafness in otherwise healthy families.

Sports updates for Jan. 3, 2012 on men’s and women’s basketball.

The army, the circus and the restaurant: three diverse institutions, each embodying distinct ideas about the nature of service. In Killing Time, Hungarian installation artist Balázs Kicsiny both investigates and conflates these institutions and their raisons d’être: to protect or kill, to entertain, and to feed. Beginning Friday, Jan. 27, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will present Killing Time, Kicsiny’s newest work and his first U.S. museum exhibition, developed while in residence with the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts as the Henry L. and Natalie E. Freund Visiting Artist.

The presents have been opened. The tree has been put away. Now come the bills. What is the best way to tackle holiday debt? Pay down the loan with the highest interest rate first. But consumers often take a slightly different approach, according to a consumer behavior expert at Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis.

In 1947, Jackie Robinson took the field with the Brooklyn Dodgers and changed baseball forever. Now, imagine traveling back in time to witness Robinson’s historic season first-hand. In Jackie and Me, young Joey Stoshack does exactly that, when a rare baseball card transports the headstrong Little Leaguer to Ebbets Field.

In the December 24 issue of Physical Review Letters, WUSTL physicist Ramanath Cowsik and his collaborators put their finger on a problem with the now-famous OPERA experiment that reported faster-than-light, or superluminal, neutrinos last September. Cowsik raises theoretical considerations that would make the creation of superluminal neutrinos impossible.

With the delicacy of a spider web and the rigorous logic of a chain reaction, three miles of sky blue cord stretch outward from the stage and into the seats, enveloping dancers and audience alike. Choreographer Brian Brooks is known for creating works defined by their cheeky wit, audacious visuals and superhuman endurance. In January, the Brian Brooks Moving Company will present Motor, a major new piece exploring notions of time, entropy and perpetual movement, as part of the Edison Ovations Series.

Sleep may be priority No. 1 for many college students who are finishing finals and returning home for winter break. Advisers from the Career Center at Washington University in St. Louis suggest students use the time, not only to recharge, but to reflect and self-evaluate. The extended break is an ideal time to think about options, update resumes, network and put career plans into action.

With a concentration of high-tech startups second only to America, Israel — which has the second-most number of companies on the NASDAQ stock exchange — is considered the world’s next Silicon Valley. Twelve students from Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis will get a chance to view that innovation up close when they travel to Israel Jan. 5-12, 2012 as part of a venture advising course aimed at exploring the country’s venture capital market.

Traditional product advertising — full-page magazine ads and 30-second television commercials — may be going the way of the rotary phone. Emerging concepts such as crowdsourcing, viral Internet campaigns, product placements and guerilla promotions will dominate the marketing and advertising landscape in 2012 and beyond, says a marketing expert at Washington University in St. Louis.