Arts & Sciences

Erik Trinkaus / Czech Academy of SciencesA 26,000 year-old early modern human showing the reduced strength of the bones of the lesser toes.Those high-tech, air-filled, light-as-a-feather sneakers on your feet are a far cry from the leather slabs our ancestors wore for protection and support. But believe it or not, our modern day Nikes and Reeboks are direct descendents of the first supportive footwear that new research suggests came into use in western Eurasia between 26,000 and 30,000 years ago.

Erik Trinkaus helped date human fossils excavated more than 100 years ago from the Mladec Caves in Moravia, Czech Republic.

Researchers compared 20 college-aged, expert video game players — those who log more than 10 hours of game time per week — with nonplayers.

Internationally renowned economist Ping Wang will be named inaugural holder of the Seigle Family Professorship in Arts & Sciences later this year. The new professorship was established by University Trustee member.

Photo by David KilperLars Angenent (right) and Jason He examine the upflow microbial fuel cell, which can turn wastewater into electricity.The upflow microbial fuel cell is fed continually and works with chambers atop each other rather than beside each other.

Deanna Barch (center) discusses brain imaging techniques used in the experiment, which used the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine (shown at right).When encouraged to use memorization strategies commonly employed by healthy individuals, people with schizophrenia can be helped to remember information just as well as their healthy counterparts, a process that in itself seems to spur a normalization of memory-related activities in the brains of people with schizophrenia, suggests new research from Washington University in St. Louis.

Written in a plainspoken and often humorous style, the memoir offers a fresh and engaging perspective on Reagan’s leadership style and motivations.

He joins Lee Epstein, Ph.D., professor of political science, and Murray L. Weidenbaum, Ph.D., professor of economics, as the third Mallinckrodt professor in Arts & Sciences.

The grant from Hewlett-Packard was for 21 wireless tablet PCs with docking stations, along with a digital camera, portable projector and printer.

Abnormal heart rate variability increases the risk of death for depressed heart patients.Scientists have known for years that depression increases the risk of dying in the months after a heart attack, but they haven’t understood how depression raises that risk. Now, behavioral medicine specialists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis are reporting in the Archives of Internal Medicine that abnormal heart rate variability is partially responsible for depression’s effects in heart patients.