Latest Washington University in St. Louis Stories

An archeologist at Washington University in St. Louis is helping to reveal for the first time a snapshot of rural life in China during the Han Dynasty.The rural farming village of Sanyangzhuang was flooded by silt-heavy water from the Yellow River around 2,000 year ago.Working with Chinese colleagues, T.R. Kidder, PhD, professor and chair of anthropology in Arts & Sciences, is working to excavate the site, which offers a exceptionally well-preserved view of daily life in Western China...

MILWAUKEE, May 5 /PRNewswire/ -- Children's Hospital of Wisconsin has installed an EOS low-dose radiation scanner, one of two in a pediatric hospital in the nation. Children's Hospital, located in Milwaukee, is one of the top-rated pediatric hospitals in the country. The Variety Orthopedic Center at Children's Hospital primarily will use the scanner to aid in treating children with scoliosis and other chronic orthopedic conditions that require frequent full-spine imaging. The scanner was...

Brain scans show persistent motivation regardless of payoff Whether it's for money, marbles or chalk, the brains of reward-driven people keep their game faces on, helping them win at every step of the way. Surprisingly, they win most often when there is no reward.That's the finding of neuroscientists at Washington University in St. Louis, who tested 31 randomly selected subjects with word games, some of which had monetary rewards of either 25 or 75 cents per correct answer, others of which...

A genetic survey shows very little structure to moray eel populations in the Indo-Pacific. How, then, did 150 species of eel arise there? Joshua Reece became interested in moray eels in 2005 when he was applying to the PhD program at the University of Hawai'i. Instead of taking him on a campus tour, his host, Brian Bowen, PhD, a biologist at the university, took him on a dive. Along the southwest coast of Oahu, Reece looked under a rock ledge and was startled to see five different species of...

The National Science Foundation has awarded $1.65 million to a project led by Washington University in St. Louis physicist Ken Kelton to build an electrostatic levitation chamber that will be installed at the Spallation Neutron Source at the Oakridge National Laboratory.Using neutrons as a probe, the instrument will allow scientists to watch atoms in a suspended drop of liquid as the drop cools and solidifies.Kelton, PhD, the Arthur Holly Compton Professor in Arts & Sciences and chair of...

Sometimes a professional favor takes you down an interesting side street Jennifer Smith, PhD, associate professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, was belly crawling her way to the end of a long, narrow tunnel carved in the rock at a desert oasis by Egyptians who lived in the time of the pharaohs."I was crawling along when suddenly I felt stabbed in the chest," she says. "I looked down and saw that I was pressing against the broken...

UCLA study stresses need to train future pediatricians in program's principlesFor parents of children with multiple medical problems, keeping up with countless doctor's appointments, ongoing tests and a variety of medications can be overwhelming, especially for those in challenging socioeconomic situations.As a result, families often wind up using the emergency room, the country's most expensive form of care delivery, to get help for their kids.But a growing concept in health care reform...

Nanoparticles provide a targeted version of photothermal therapy for cancerIn a lecture he delivered in 1906, the German physician Paul Ehrlich coined the term Zuberkugel, or "magic bullet," as shorthand for a highly targeted medical treatment.Magic bullets, also called silver bullets, because of the folkloric belief that only silver bullets can kill supernatural creatures, remain the goal of drug development efforts today.A team of scientists at Washington University in St. Louis...

Disney-themed lobby creates colorful, captivating welcome for pediatric patients, laboring moms ORLANDO, Fla., March 11 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- With help from a world-famous mouse, dozens of eager children and a shower of confetti, officials opened the doors to the welcoming, new lobby of the Walt Disney Pavilion at Florida Hospital for Children and unveiled the first physical milestone of the hospital's innovative model of pediatric health. The entrance serves as a gateway to the...

Since at least the days of Socrates, humans have been advised to "know thyself."And through all the years, many, including many personality and social psychologists, have believed the individual is the best judge of his or her own personality.Now a psychologist at Washington University in St. Louis has shown that we are not the know-it-alls that we think we are.Simine Vazire, Ph.D., Washington University assistant professor of psychology in Arts & Sciences, has found that the individual...