There is renewed interest by some Missouri groups for a proposed 23-cent-per-pack raise to Missouri’s tobacco tax, which is the nation’s lowest. While any raise in tobacco prices is one of the most effective ways to reduce
and prevent smoking, the modest tax raise does not go far enough, says a tobacco control expert at Washington University in St. Louis.
During a five-year period ending in 2013, nearly 400 children ages 16 or under were taken to one of two hospital emergency rooms in St. Louis for gun-related injuries, according to a study led by Martin S. Keller, MD, at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Of those children, 20 later died. Analyzing such cases can help identify risk factors and stem gun-related injuries, researchers believe.
Bradley H. Short, Washington University in St. Louis’ music librarian and head of departmental libraries, has been promoted to associate university librarian.
The brains of children who suffer clinical depression as preschoolers develop abnormally, compared with the brains of preschoolers unaffected by the disorder, according to university researchers. Their gray matter is lower in volume and thinner in the cortex, a part of the brain important in the processing of emotions.
Biologists have long thought that body size is correlated with temperature zone: larger animals live in colder regions and smaller ones in warmer ones. Newly compiled physiological data allowed this rule to be put to the test. Animals adapt by coordinated changes in their metabolic rates and “insulation.” Body size plays only a minor role.
As the new year approaches, many plan to make self-improvement resolutions. New research led by Hengchen Dai, PhD, assistant professor at Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis, shows extra motivation is all in the timing, and desire to get away from one’s past, imperfect self.
Chenyang Lu, PhD, the Fullgraf Professor in the School of Engineering & Applied Science at Washington University in St. Louis, has been named an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Fellow.
Joseph Goodman, PhD, associate professor of marketing at Olin Business School and Sarah Lim, doctoral student at Cornell University, say consumers tend to underestimate the experiential gift-giving advantage because they’re afraid they don’t know a person well enough to choose a more personal, preference-driven option.
Two Missouri legislators have proposed a bill that
would require public universities and colleges to revoke scholarships
held by student-athletes who refuse to play, or incite, support or
participate in a strike. The proposed law violates the First
Amendment of the United States Constitution, says an expert on freedom
of speech at Washington University in St. Louis.
An outburst from a distant quasar known as PKS 1441+25 in April of this year gave astronomers at the gamma-ray telescope VERITAS an opportunity to measure the density of the optical “fog” that lies between the quasar and Earth and to deduce the surprising separation of the high-energy emission from the black hole that drives it.
