So, what happened with the polling?

Pollsters don’t ask every American for their vote decision, but instead they ask a smaller portion of the population and infer from that what the entire population is going to do. That means there is inevitably plus or minus error in their predictions.

How a human cousin adapted to a changing climate

A fossil discovery in South Africa suggests that P. robustus evolved rapidly during a turbulent period of local climate change about 2 million years ago, resulting in anatomical changes that previously were attributed to sex. An international research team including anthropologists at Washington University in St. Louis reported their discovery in Nature Ecology & Evolution on Nov. 9.

Masks don’t just save lives, they also boost economy

The economy and coronavirus pandemic were two of the top issues for voters in the 2020 election, according to exit poll surveys. Notably, 52% of voters said controlling the pandemic was more important, even if it hurts the economy. But what if we didn’t have to choose?

Medical researchers receive grant for wildlife surveillance project

Gideon Erkenswick, a postdoctoral researcher, and Jennifer Philips, MD, PhD, associate professor of medicine — both at the School of Medicine — are taking part in a two-year project to establish a global model for wildlife population surveillance and pathogen screening.

Who Knew WashU? 11.4.20

Question: Washington University’s Mail & Receiving Services are an important part of on-campus living. How many pieces of incoming U.S. Postal Service mail does Mail Services collect, process and distribute each year?

Lewis receives national award for volunteerism

Lewis
Collins E. Lewis, MD, associate professor emeritus of psychiatry at the School of Medicine, has received the 2020 National Citizen Scientist Cornerstone Award from the Global Alzheimer’s Platform Foundation. He was honored in recognition of his extraordinary efforts to support Alzheimer’s research by participating in and promoting diversity in clinical trials.

Improving emergency care for people with dementia is focus of new grant

Washington University School of Medicine is one of four institutions to receive a National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant to study how to improve emergency care for adults with dementia. For the project, experts in emergency medicine, geriatrics and dementia will identify and address gaps in emergency care.

Hydrogen bonds may be key to airborne dicamba

Research from the lab of Kimberly Parker in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis has discovered the mechanism that keeps formulations of the herbicide dicamba from going airborne. And they consider why it sometimes fails.

Luke receives CDC grant for tobacco control user guides

Douglas Luke, director of the Center for Public Health Systems Science and the Irving Louis Horowitz Professor in Social Policy at the Brown School, recently received a $2.9 million grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The grant, which runs for 4 1/2 years, is to continue developing a series of tobacco control user guides […]