Work is under way on the 2013-14 Student Planner, and students, faculty and staff are encouraged to submit events and important dates. The spiral-bound student planner — given to all first-year students and available for purchase in the University Bookstore at the start of the academic year — contains a wealth of information about campus life, such as important dates (student events, holidays, breaks and deadlines), operational hours for campus facilities, contact numbers for key departments, and much more. Date submissions are open until April 20.
As part of the 2013 Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U) meeting at Washington University April 5-7, approximately 800 conference delegates will go to Gateway STEM High School to complete service projects. To prepare for this initiative, 175 WUSTL volunteers are needed from noon-5 p.m. March 30 to prime and tape walls, organize supplies and complete other tasks at Gateway High School. All volunteers will receive a ticket to the CGI U Opening Plenary Session.
Nanoparticles carrying a toxin found in bee venom can destroy human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) while leaving surrounding cells unharmed, researchers at the School of Medicine have shown. The finding is an important step toward developing a vaginal gel that may prevent the spread of HIV. Shown are nanoparticles (purple) carrying melittin (green) that fuse with HIV (small circles with spiked outer ring), destroying the virus’s protective envelope.
John Inazu, JD, first amendment expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, was invited to provide testimony to the United States Commission on Civil Rights briefing on “Peaceful Coexistence? Reconciling Non-discrimination Principles with Civil Liberties.”
Hans Christian Andersen’s The Ugly Duckling has delighted children for generations. Aesop’s The Tortoise and the Hare dates back more than 2,500 years old. On March 16, Corbian Visual Arts and Dance (aka Lightwire Theatre) will return to Edison will cutting-edge theatrical adaptation of both classic fables as part of the ovations for young people series.
Beginning in fall 2013, Washington University School of Law will offer the Semester-in-Practice Externship, an innovative program that empowers second- and third-year law students to gain hands-on professional experience anywhere in the country. Through the externship program, students will earn academic credit by spending a semester working full time for a nonprofit, government, or in-house corporate law office in the location of their choice.
As a child in New Mexico, Robert Mirabal awoke at dawn and “ran to the sun.” The ritual, a fusion of physical and spiritual discipline, was an important component of daily life in many Native American cultures. Now, that memory has helped inspire Music of the Sun, a collaborative concert between the Grammy Award-winning flutist and the pioneering string quartet Ethel, which comes to the 560 Music Center March 22.
Viruses often spread through the brain in patchwork
patterns, infecting some cells but missing others. New research at the School of Medicine helps explain why: Natural immune defenses that resist viral
infection are turned on in some brain cells but switched off in others. The white arrows in the picture highlight infected cells in a mouse brain.
Although peripheral neuropathies afflict some 20 million Americans, their underlying causes are not completely understood. Now, scientists have shown that damage to energy factories in Schwann cells, which grow alongside neurons and enable nerve signals to travel from the spinal cord to the tips of the fingers and toes, may play a central role. Shown is a Schwann cell surrounding nerve axons, shown in green.
There is little on which the two Houses of Congress and the President can find compromise these days, with the sequester a vivid symbol of this polarization. And gridlock in government would only worsen if the proposed REINS Act moves forward, says Ronald M. Levin, JD, administrative law expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis.
