Newsroom Stories

Hearing loss is common for soldiers coming home from deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, but another perhaps equally vexing problem is tinnitus, a condition that causes them to hear sound that isn’t there. Using MRI scans, researchers hope to identify differences in brain activity that will aid development of preventive strategies to alleviate the effects of tinnitus.

Nate Ferguson, a senior in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, is lifted on the shoulders of the other contestants after he was crowned Mr. Wash U March 24 at Edison Theatre. Ferguson was one of 15 students vying for the title. The competition raised more than $35,188 for City Faces, a local nonprofit organization started Bob Hansman, associate professor of architecture.

Shirley Sahrmann, PhD, professor of physical therapy, of neurology and of cell biology and physiology in the School of Medicine, is at the forefront of teaching physical therapy. Her latest textbook teaches physical therapists to use the movement system to classify and categorize musculoskeletal pain problems, make accurate diagnosis and better treat the patient.

The final IdeaBounce event of the academic year will be held at 5 p.m. Thursday, March 31, in the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum. Sponsored by the Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, IdeaBounce offers innovators and entrepreneurs from around the region a place to collaborate in the development of new ideas.

To help clarify the increasingly confusing nuclear crisis in Japan in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami, two WUSTL scientists and experts in nuclear science and radiation, Henry Royal, MD, and Lee Sobotka, PhD, will offer their expertise in an Assembly Series lecture at 4 p.m. Friday, April 1, in Lab Science Room 300 on the Danforth Campus.

Rye Barcott, author of It Happened on the Way to War: A Marine’s Path to Peace, is available for interviews Wednesday March 30.

Sports updates for week of March 28, 2011.

University College, the continuing education and professional studies division in Arts & Sciences at WUSTL, will host a panel discussion titled “Journalism in the Digital Age: Anything Goes?” at 6 p.m. Thursday, April 7, in the Danforth University Center, Room 234. The panel discussion is free and open to the public.

The premise behind Tom Bernatowicz’s innovative introductory physics course is that students should understand — even if they sometimes can’t fully share — the enthusiasm physicists feel their work. “We love physics, and we want our students to love it, too,” says Bernatowicz, PhD. “We’re not saying we’ll make it easy just so that they’ll love it, but we do want them to understand because it’s something we ourselves cherish and we want them to see how great it is.”

In Counting from Zero a computer security expert named Mick O’Malley must track down and thwart an enormous botnet, or network of zombie computers organized to receive commands over the Internet and perform the hacker’s bidding. The novel, by Alan B. Johnston, who teaches engineering courses at Washington University in St. Louis, is both a fast read and a chilling tutorial on the the increasingly serious threats to computer security.