Washington University in St. Louis will host the “Work & Livable Lives Conference”
Feb. 27 and 28 to address current employment-related challenges and how
they limit the ability of U.S. households to lead secure and stable
lives, raise children successfully, and contribute to the community. The conference will include panels on household financial fragility,
measurement of economic security, the American Dream, labor and
employment policy, and health policy and employment. All conference events will be held in the Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom of
Anheuser-Busch Hall and are free and open to the public.
Children with autism often have problems developing motor skills, such as running, throwing a ball or even learning how to write. But scientists have not known whether those difficulties run in families or are linked to autism. New research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis by Claudia List Hilton, PhD, points to autism as the culprit.
Antibiotics that doctors typically prescribe for sinus infections do not reduce symptoms any better than an inactive placebo, according to Jay F. Piccirillo, MD, and his co-investigators at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Instead of giving antibiotics, the researchers suggest treating
symptoms, such as pain, cough and congestion, along with watchful
waiting to see whether further treatment is necessary.
A proposal by two WUSTL students to introduce
turf reduction, large bio-swales, more cisterns and even sheep
“lawnmowers” to campus as part of plan to make landscaping more
sustainable at the university won the $5,000 first prize in the annual
Olin Sustainability Case Competition.
Mike McLaughlin, MBA student Olin Business School, will spend the day in a hammock Feb. 15, doing
homework, reading and raising funds and awareness for his 2,500-mile
six-month hike4kids.com hike through the entire Appalachian and Ozark trails beginning in late February.
Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, led by Philip Stahl, PhD, professor of cell biology and physiology have identified a potent regulator of sensitivity to insulin, the hormone that controls blood sugar levels. The new findings may help scientists find better treatments for type 2
diabetes, obesity and other health problems caused by the body’s
inability to properly regulate blood sugar.
WUSTL’s Lifelong Learning Institute (LLI) will host an information session titled “Show Me LLI” for prospective students at 1 p.m. Friday, Feb. 24, at West Campus. The event, free and open to senior adults ages 55 and older, will feature an orientation followed by several sample classes.
Vicki Kunkler, director of publications and communications at the Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology (MIR) at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, died Saturday, Feb. 11, 2012, of cancer. She was 64.
The City of New York recently subpoenaed a Twitter account as part of an ongoing Occupy Wall Street criminal case. The Occupy protester named in the case is challenging the subpoena. Privacy law expert Neil Richards, JD, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, says that it’s not surprising that law enforcement groups are interested in accessing the volume of records relating to our speech that social media platforms generate. “By and large, this data should remain private, and online companies should keep the data confidential and not share it any more broadly than we as users and speakers want it to be shared,” Richards says.
War. Terrorism. International expansion. President William McKinley is frequently overshadowed by his charismatic successor, Theodore Roosevelt, yet McKinley’s presidency was arguably the more action-packed, with lasting implications for American power and its role in the world. So argues Scott Miller, author of The President and the Assassin: McKinley, Terror, and Empire at the Dawn of the American Century (2011). At 5 p.m. Monday, Feb. 20, Miller will discuss McKinley and his legacy for the Center for the Humanities’s third annual Presidents’ Day Lecture.