Newsroom Stories

Cheryl Block, JD, federal budget and tax expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, weighs in on tax cut extensions. “We want it all: low tax rates, government spending on the programs we prefer, and — ideally — a balanced budget,” she says. “Perhaps not surprisingly, the desire for prudent budgets increasingly loses out to the first two demands.”

Sports updates for the week of Dec. 13, 2010.

A team of scientists a team, including William B. McKinnon, PhD, professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, propose an explanation for the bizarre ridge belting Saturn’s outermost moon Iapetus. At one time Iapetus itself may have had a satellite, created by a giant impact with another body. The satellite’s orbit would have decayed because of tidal interactions with Iapetus, and at some point it would have been ripped apart, forming a ring of debris around Iapetus that would eventually slam into the moon near its equator,

Nutritional information has popped up on the front of food packages using a wide range of different symbols and rating systems. But without a common form or standards, there’s a risk that consumers could be confused by the new information, says Matthew Kreuter, PhD, a public health expert and professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.  

Jack Ladenson, PhD (left), the Oree M. Carroll and Lillian B. Ladenson Professor of Clinical Chemistry in Pathology and Immunology and professor of clinical chemistry in medicine and the inaugural recipient of the Chancellor’s Award for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, talks with Faculty Achievement Award winners John C. Morris, MD (center), the Harvey A. and Dorismae Hacker Friedman Professor of Neurology, and Gary J. Miller, PhD, professor of political science in Arts & Sciences, before the awards ceremony Dec. 4 at Moore Auditorium on the Medical Campus.

Washington University’s Department of Facilities Planning & Management, School of Medicine Facilities Management Department and Office of Sustainability have partnered on a pilot project to retrofit a number of water fountains on the Danforth and Medical campuses to allow for the easy refilling of reusable water bottles. The filling stations were installed to provide the WUSTL community with easy access to drinking water for use in portable, reusable containers.

The National Children’s Study, the largest study ever conducted in the United States to learn about the health and development of children, is beginning in St. Louis this week.

Of note Cindy Grimm, PhD, associate professor of computer science and engineering, has received a three-year, $213,923 grant from the National Science Foundation for research titled “Collaborative Research: Biological Shape Spaces, Transforming Shape into Knowledge.” … Fang Liu, PhD, a postdoctoral research associate in pathology and immunology, has received a two-year, $95,224 American Heart Association […]

Reuters US study helps unravel Alzheimer’s mystery 12/09/2010 Instead of producing too much of a protein, people with Alzheimer’s disease appear to have trouble getting rid of it, U.S. researchers said on Thursday. The finding may help explain why people with Alzheimer’s accumulate sticky clumps of a protein called amyloid beta, and it may help […]

Neurologists finally have an answer to one of the most important questions about Alzheimer’s disease: Do rising brain levels of a plaque-forming substance mean patients are making more of it or that they can no longer clear it from their brains as effectively? A new study by Randall Bateman, MD, assistant professor of neurology, shows clearance is impaired in Alzheimer’s patients.