Agence France Presse (AFP)
Females more prone to knee injury in football: Study
9/1/2010
“Kicking like a girl” is a real phenomenon and may explain why females are more likely to suffer knee injuries in sports such as football, suggests a new study led by WUSTL orthopedic surgeon Robert Brophy. Researchers found significant differences in knee alignment and muscle activation between men and women while kicking a ball. The study offers a possible explanation for why female players are more than twice as likely as males to sustain an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury. “By analyzing the detailed motion of a soccer kick in progress, our goal was to home in on some of the differences between the sexes and how they may relate to injury risk,” Brophy said. “This study offers more information to help us better understand the differences between male and female athletes, particularly soccer players.” Link to Article
See also
CNN/Cable News Network
San Francisco’s Kindergarten-to-College program helps kids save for college
CNN’s Dan Simon looks at a program in San Francisco that helps kids save for college while still in kindergarten. The Kindergarten-to-College program, set to roll out this fall, will provide a college savings account for each kindergartner entering city public schools. The CNN piece cites research from the Center for Social Development at Washington University in St. Louis indicating the increased likelihood of college attendance among youth who set aside money for higher education. One of the main ideas behind this program is just to get children thinking about college at a very young age. Link to Article / Online Video Link to Broadcast
Science Watch
What’s hot in chemistry: Chemicals to conduct and generate electricity
09/02/2010
This month’s “What’s Hot in Chemistry” overview includes a paper on oxygen reduction from a team headed by Younan Xia at Washington University, St Louis. The paper offers an alternative catalyst for fuel cells where hydrogen oxidation and oxygen reduction are the driving force. As yet, the widespread use of fuel cells to power vehicles is inhibited by the high costs of the platinum-based catalysts that are needed. Xia offers a different type of platinum; his catalyst may have applications beyond fuel cells. Link to Article
Chronicle of Higher Education
JAMA editor to step down and return to Johns Hopkins U.
09/01/2010
The editor in chief of the Journal of the American Medical Association, Catherine D. DeAngelis, announced today that she would leave the medical publication next June, after 11 years at the helm. “I’m going to return to my academic home, Johns Hopkins University, … and I’m going to start a center for professionalism — that’s the ethics,” Dr. DeAngelis said. A search committee for her successor will be led by Ronald G. Evens, of the medical school at Washington University in St. Louis. Link to Article
Advance for Speech-Language Pathologists & Audiologists
Children’s behavior
09/01/2010
A $2 million grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development will fund WUSTL research on a parent training program in the vulnerable child welfare population. “Pathways Triple P teaches strategies to manage parental anger, challenges negative parental attributes for child misbehavior, and seeks to help parents identify the effect of harsh discipline on their children while identifying causes of harsh and critical parenting practices,” said lead investigator Patricia Kohl, PhD, assistant professor in the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University. Link to Article
St. Louis Jewish Light
Jewish campus life 2010
The Jewish Light has put together an annual college guide to help incoming college students navigate their way through Jewish St. Louis. The guide covers Washington University-based Jewish organizations, such as St. Louis Hillel, Chabad on Campus and the Jewish Student Union. It also includes features on several Jewish leaders on campus, including WUSTL graduate and Hillel executive director Jacqueline “Jackie” Levey, Hillel Rabbi Andy Kastner and Rabbi Hershey Novack and his wife Chana at the Rohr Center for Jewish Life, a branch of Chabad on Campus that serves Washington University. Link to Article
eJewish Philanthropy: The Jewish Philanthropy Blog
Vibrant Jewish campus life benefits the entire community
09/02/2010
Article by Rabbi Hershey Novack of Chabad on Campus articulates to the St. Louis Jewish community that their support of local Jewish campus life benefits the entire St. Louis community. More broadly, these themes resonate in similar communities throughout the country. Novack notes that, in 2008, Jewish Living magazine identified the Washington University campus area as the epicenter of one of the Top 10 Jewish communities in America, describing the school as “popular with Jews from around the country, known for its kosher kitchen and strong Hillel and Chabad programs with plenty of activities.” Link to Article
FOX2 News / St. Louis
Possible Alzheimer’s breakthrough at Washington University
9/1/2010
It could be an Alzheimer’s breakthrough. St. Louis researchers have found evidence that anti-depressant drugs, like Prozac, may slow down – even prevent – the disease. There’s been a big boost to keep the research going. Washington University’s Alzheimer’s Research Center got a new name during a dedication ceremony Wednesday, after receiving money from businessman Charles Knight and his wife, Joanne; money that was already pointing to a way to beat the “memory-eating” disease. The reach of the Knights’ more than $15 million commitment for the newly named Charles and Joanne Knight Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (ADRC) has certainly gone far beyond the fountain outside the ceremony hall, but perhaps nowhere was it more important. Link to Broadcast
News in higher education
New York Times
On big moving day, Boston battles a pest
9/1/2010
Students moving into off-campus housing often claim the couches, beds and other material left behind, but city officials would prefer they buy their own furniture. With heightened awareness nationwide, city officials are increasing their efforts to warn colleges and landlords about bedbugs. Link to Article
Weekly Standard
Obamacare might kill off college students’ health plans
8/26/2010
Now it appears that another type of plan might well be on the chopping block: college students’ health plans. Obamacare would require insurers to cover 25-year-old “children” on their parents’ plans – resulting in higher premiums – while it might simultaneously ban colleges from offering 18-to-22-year-olds low-cost policies of their own. Link to Article
Washington Post
Justice department appeals to restart stem cell research
9/1/2010
The Obama administration on Tuesday formally challenged a court order barring the federal government from funding human embryonic stem cell research. The Justice Department asked U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth to suspend a temporary injunction he issued last week blocking the funding and filed a notice of plans to appeal the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals. In a declaration filed with the notice, National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Francis Collins said the NIH had invested more than $546 million in the research since 2001. A Justice Department spokesperson said the “anticipated financial loss to NIH and the taxpaying public is enormous and would include the hundreds of millions already spent on interrupted projects and the administrative costs of shutting down and restarting the NIH funding.” Link to Article
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