Drugs for type 2 diabetes can contribute to unwanted side effects, but Washington University researchers have found that in mice, an investigational drug appears to improve insulin sensitivity without side effects. The medicine works through a different pathway, which could provide additional targets for treating insulin resistance and diabetes.
A new study suggests that health insurance exchanges, a key provision of the Affordable Care Act passed in 2010, may need to be monitored by policymakers to make sure there is sufficient competition between private insurance plans. In the study, published in Health Affairs, Timothy McBride, PhD, professor and associate dean for public health at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, examined the insurance premiums, availability of plans and enrollment levels under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP). “From its inception, the health reform legislation used the structure of the FEHBP to guide the design of these exchanges,” McBride says.
Scientists at Washington University in St. Louis have found a gene that seems to unleash the courtship ritual in male fruit flies. Males missing this gene are capable of courtship; they just have trouble getting started. Usually male fruit flies are “highly sexed,” to the point that they will court and mount “perfumed dummies,” decapitated females coated in waxy pheromones.
Six WUSTL staff members are headed to Shanghai and Paris June 9-15, as part of the Global Diversity Overseas Seminar Program. The new weeklong study abroad program strives to encourage a fuller appreciation of diversity on the Danforth Campus by introducing select faculty and staff members to dramatically different cultural contexts
A new model for understanding how nerve cells in the
brain control movement may help unlock the secrets of the motor cortex, a
critical region that has long resisted
scientists’ efforts to understand it, researchers report June 3 in Nature.
Geologist Brad Jolliff analyzes images of the moon’s far side. His team’s findings on a unique volcanic complex may shed light on how materials got distributed millions of years ago, information that may one day assist in planning future space exploration.
The Earth & Planetary Sciences building, one of the most interesting buildings on the Danforth Campus, was recently dedicated Scott Rudolph Hall. Learn about 15 intriguing aspects of this much-loved building.
Professor Carolyn Lesorogol’s profound understanding of pastoralists in northern Kenya informs her research on property ownership and its effects on community and well-being
