Newsroom Stories

The New York Times
 He may be bound, but this Prometheus still manages to rock
 03/08/2011 For the playwright Steven Sater the idea of having one’s life altered by flames is intensely personal. When Sater was an undergraduate at Washington University in St. Louis, his apartment caught fire and engulfed his bedroom; he jumped out […]

The School of Engineering & Applied Science’s Alumni Achievement Awards dinner was held Feb. 23. A reception for the five recipients was held in Brauer Hall, followed by dinner in Whitaker Hall. Three alumni received Alumni Achievement Awards, one was given the Young Alumni Award and one was honored with the Dean’s Award.

A team of researchers, including earth and planetary scientists from Washington University in St. Louis, for the first time has been able to reconstruct both ocean temperature and general ice thickness of massive glaciers during one of the biggest mass extinctions in history hundreds of millions of years ago. The extinction, which occurred between 445 and 443 million years ago in the Late Ordovician Period, is one of the five biggest mass extinctions in Earth history, wiping out an estimated 75 percent of simple marine species.

Simeon Schlaggar, son of Bradley Schlaggar, MD, PhD, examines a brain at NeuroDay at the Saint Louis Science Center. The event was jointly sponsored by Washington University and the Saint Louis Science Center and was staffed in part by Washington University graduate students.

Helen Piwnica-Worms, PhD, the Gerty T. Cori Professor, has been named head of the Department of Cell Biology and Physiology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

Practice may not always make perfect, but a novel study of Midwestern middle school science students suggests it just might. New research from Washington University in St. Louis shows that students who received three quizzes on content questions before a unit test performed at the “A” level on those test questions, compared with a “C” level on questions that were not quizzed beforehand but still on the test.

Scientists have blocked harmful immune cells from entering the brain in mice with a condition similar to multiple sclerosis (MS), believed to be caused by misdirected immune cells that enter the brain and damage myelin, an insulating material on the branches of neurons that conduct nerve impulses.

Students or employees who do not currently hold an annual parking permit but wish to store their vehicles on campus during spring break (March 11-20) may do so after obtaining a placard from Parking Services. Individuals must come to the Parking Services office to fill out an emergency contact form and receive a complimentary parking placard to display on the vehicle dashboard.

Chess grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura, the top-ranked chess player in America and 8th in the world at age 23, was on campus Feb. 26 for a question-and-answer session and an opportunity for students to test their skills against the best. Nakamura needed just two-and-a-half hours to win 42 games of bullet chess. The event was sponsored by the Washington University Chess Club.

Los Angeles Times
 The debate over prostate cancer tests
 03/05/2011 Do PSAs (screening tests for prostate cancer) save lives? A 2009 study followed more than 76,000 American men ages 55 through 74 for 10 years. Half the men were offered yearly PSA tests and the other half received “usual care,” which sometimes included the test. […]