Arts & Sciences

Personal experience told Lisa Gorham, captain of the Washington University in St. Louis cross-country, track and indoor track teams, that team sports and adolescent mental health are linked. But what would the data say? Gorham has just published her findings in a leading journal — a rare accomplishment for an undergraduate researcher.

Adult depression has long been associated with shrinkage of the hippocampus, a brain region that plays an important role in memory and response to stress. Now, new research from Washington University in St. Louis has linked participation in team sports to larger hippocampal volumes in children and less depression in boys ages 9 to 11.

Long before corn was king, the women of Cahokia’s mysterious Mississippian mound-building culture were using their knowledge of domesticated and wild food crops to feed the thousands of Native Americans who flocked to what was then North America’s largest city, suggests a new book by a paleoethnobiologist at Washington University in St. Louis. “Feeding Cahokia” sets the record straight on America’s first farmers while offering a roadmap for rediscovering the highly nutritious native foods they once cultivated, including a North American cousin of quinoa.

You — as part of the 10 percent of the American population who participates in this form of technically illegal gambling — have a 1-in-9.2 quintillion chance of picking the perfect March Madness bracket, says a statistical expert from Washington University in St. Louis.

Once more, we grieve; once more, we resolve to do what we can—all that we can—to quell the fires of racism, anti-Semitism, and anti-Muslim bigotry that burn ferociously today.

Erik Herzog, professor of biology in Arts & Sciences, studies the molecules, cells and circuits of mammalian circadian timing. He also supports and encourages younger neuroscience researchers, from elementary school all the way through doctoral programs.

The 14th annual African Film Festival invites St. Louisans to see eight of Africa’s most acclaimed films on the big screen. Highlights include two Kenyan films, the controversial “Rafiki,” which was banned in its own country, and “Supa Moda,” a family-friendly film that one critic called “the most important superhero movie you’ll see this year.”

A researcher at Washington University in St. Louis travels the Americas, collecting feces from nonhuman primates to determine the risk of Zika reservoirs.

“Few chefs of African descent work at the pinnacle of our national haute cuisine today, yet their contributions to American kitchens and dining rooms have been definitive.” So argues Rafia Zafar, professor of English and of African-American studies, both in Arts & Sciences, in her new book “Recipes for Respect: African American Meals and Meaning.”

Choreographers Harrison Parker and Rachael Servello will present a pair of new works March 23 in Edison Theatre as part of “Reel2Real,” the 2019 MFA Student Dance Concert.