Newsroom Stories

AOL News Tea Party freshmen in Congress face reality check 11/21/2010 AOL News reached out to congressional scholars and former GOP Hill staffers for insights into what freshmen will face in their new jobs and how that differs from the campaign rhetoric that helped send them here. “All money bills will be a problem for […]

Before delivering the Stein Lecture in Ethics for the Assembly Series Nov. 17, humanitarian and actress Mia Farrow participated in a seminar on human trafficking at the School of Law in Anheuser-Busch Hall. Karen Tokarz, JD, the Charles Nagel Professor of Public Interest Law & Public Service and director of the Dispute Resolution Program, led the group of social work and law students.

Sports updates for the week of Nov. 22, 2010.

In a study of heavy smokers, fewer screened with low-dose CT scans died, compared with similar smokers screened with standard chest X-rays. The National Cancer Institute ran the 33-center National Lung Screening Trial to learn whether more sensitive screening could have an impact on lung-cancer deaths, and Washington University researchers involved in the study say it did.

The field in the 2010 Olin Cup business plan competition was narrowed Nov. 18 as 21 semifinalists faced off in the elevator pitch stage of the race for entrepreneurs at Washington University in St. Louis. Six ventures were selected to advance to the final round of the annual contest that will award $75,000 to the most promising enterprise in February 2011.

The same powerful drugs that have extended the lives of countless people with HIV come with a price — insulin resistance that can lead to diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Now, Paul Hruz, MD, PhD, and his team at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have determined why that happens.

Priya Mallika Sury, a 2010 graduate of Washington University in St. Louis, has been named a Rhodes Scholar, according to an announcement today by the Rhodes Trust. Sury is among 32 students from across the United States chosen for graduate study at the University of Oxford in England. Winners of the highly acclaimed award are selected on the basis of their undergraduate academic achievements, personal integrity, leadership potential and physical vigor.

Van Jones, JD, wants to put Americans to work — millions of Americans, and not just any kind of work. The former special adviser on green jobs to President Barack Obama has a clear vision to solve the two most profound challenges facing the United States today: poverty and pollution. He will share that vision for the Assembly Series at noon Tuesday, Nov. 30, in Graham Chapel.

In Western literature on laughter, says Anca Parvulescu, PhD, a lot of attention is paid to why people laugh. Parvulescu’s book Laughter: Notes on a Passion (MIT Press, 2010) examines what people do when they laugh. What does laughter sound like? What are the different kinds of laughs that people laugh? What social, cultural and political work does laughter do?

Thousands in the St. Louis community will benefit from the generosity of Washington University’s faculty, staff and retirees. The university has raised more than $651,000 in its United Way of Greater St. Louis campaign, surpassing its stated goal of $615,000.