Newsroom Stories

At a time when the American economy needs the best and the brightest economic minds, prominent banker and philanthropist Sam B. Cook has given Washington University a critical resource to help develop the next generation of economic leaders with a gift of $1.5 million to establish a professorship in the Department of Economics in Arts & Sciences.

Three new three-week Summer Institutes for high school students will be offered at Washington University in St. Louis in 2011. The High School Summer Institutes — one of which focuses on creative writing, one on Japanese popular culture and on one pre-medical topics — are part of Washington University’s High School Summer Experiences program in Arts & Sciences.

Students perform a dance Feb. 5 in Edison Theatre at the Lunar New Year Festival, the annual event sponsored by Asian student groups on campus. 2011 is the Year of the Rabbit, and people born under this Chinese symbol are said to be articulate, talented and ambitious.

Bacteria often attack with toxins designed to hijack or even kill host cells. To avoid self-destruction, bacteria have ways of protecting themselves from their own toxins. Now, researchers have described one of these protective mechanisms, potentially paving the way for new classes of antibiotics that cause the bacteria’s toxins to turn on themselves.

Washington University School of Medicine researchers report they have identified a gene that limits damage to the lung during acute stress from illness, trauma or transplant.

The FDA, through the new Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, is considering banning outdoor tobacco product advertising at various distances from schools and playgrounds. The tobacco industry is challenging these rules on First Amendment grounds, arguing that they would lead to a near complete ban on tobacco advertising in dense urban areas. A new study by the Center for Tobacco Policy Research (CTPR) at Washington University in St. Louis found that a 1000-foot buffer would still allow for tobacco ads. Smaller buffer zones of 350 feet may result in almost no reduction of outdoor tobacco advertising.

Hillary A. Sale, JD, the Walter D. Coles Professor of Law and Professor of Management at Washington University in St. Louis, organized this year’s DirectWomen Board Institute, an annual national program designed to develop and position an elite group of exceptional senior women lawyers for service as directors of major U.S. corporations. The institute is being held this week, Feb. 9-11, in New York City.

Anyone who cares about the rule of law has to acknowledge that illegal immigration has serious social costs that cannot be casually dismissed, says immigration law expert Stephen Legomsky, JD, DPhil, the John S. Lehmann University Professor at Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. “When millions of individuals violate any law — whether it’s immigration, taxes or exceeding the posted speed limit — the rule of law takes a hit. But sometimes, mass violations reveal flaws in the law itself. At any rate, the rule of law also means that the penalties should not be disproportionate to the wrongdoing.”

BBC News | Health (UK) Chromosome fault linked to sleepwalking 2/8/2011 A genetic link to sleepwalking has been identified by researchers. They studied four generations of a family of sleepwalkers and concluded that the condition is associated with a fault in a section of chromosome 20, BBC News reported. Just one copy of the defective […]

Like listeners adjusting a high-tech radio, scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have tuned in to precise frequencies of brain activity to unleash new insights into how the brain works. “Analysis of brain function normally focuses on where brain activity happens and when,” says Eric Leuthardt, MD. “What we’ve found is that the wavelength of the activity provides a third major branch of understanding brain physiology.”