The New York Times
In pursuit of a mind map, slice by slice
12/27/2010
In September, the National Institutes of Health handed out $40 million in grants to researchers at Harvard, Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Minnesota and the University of California, Los Angeles , to pursue connectomics, an emerging field that aims to build a full map of the mind. Together, their research efforts comprise the Human Connectome Project.
Link to Article See also Science Blogs, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Deseret News (Salt Lake City, Utah), Twin Cities Pioneer Press
Slate
“Silverchest” — A poem by Carl Phillips
12/28/2010
Carl Phillips, the author of 11 books of poetry, including Double Shadow, forthcoming this spring, teaches at Washington University in St. Louis. As part of Slate’s weekly Poetry Podcast on iTunes, Phillips reads his poem, Silverchest. Listen to Podcast
Sympatico.ca News (Canada)
Neanderthals ate their veggies
12/28/2010
If Neanderthals were not as savage and brutal as we always assumed, and in fact were eating legumes, wild grass, palm dates, roots and tubers, as a recent study suggests, then why did they go extinct? Interbreeding may be the answer. Erik Trinkaus, a renowned paleonanthropologist and expert on Neanderthal biology from Washington University, has been quoted saying, “extinction through absorption is a common phenomenon.” Link to Article
San Antonio (Texas) Express News
Artists connect through paper in ‘Crossovers’
12/17/2010
Joan Hall, who teaches art at Washington University in St. Louis, is part of a two-artist exhibit at the Blue Star Contemporary Art Center in San Antonio. Hall’s principal work here is “Your Existence Is Not Unlike Mine,” a blue, green and gray work that stretches some 25 feet along the wall, a swirling, shifting underwater environment that, in the words of artist Katharine Kuharic, “seems to embody the flow and heave of the ocean.” Link to Article
Insider Medicine
Buildup of beta amyloid in the brain responsible for Alzheimer’s Disease (video)
12/27/2010
Direct evidence that buildup of beta-amyloid in the brain is involved in the development of Alzheimer’s disease has been demonstrated in research published in the latest issue of Science Express. Researchers from Washington University School of Medicine used a technique they developed known as stable isotope-linked kinetics, or SILK, to directly measure both the production and clearance of beta-amyloid in the central nervous systems. Link to Article
AllGov-News
Ambassador to the Central African Republic: Who is Laurence Wohlers?
12/26/2010
Wohlers earned his B.A. degree from Washington University in St. Louis, and his M.S. from the National War College in Washington, D.C. His parents worked as Foreign Service officers in Japan, Pakistan, and the former Yugoslavia, where father Lester served as country film officer for the U.S. Information Agency. Wohlers held the positions of Minister Counselor for Public Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, and Minister Counselor for Political Affairs at the U.S. Mission to the European Union. He also spent a year at the Smithsonian as Senior Advisor for International Activities. Link to Article
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
A few questions with first woman president of a St. Louis area synagogue
12/28/2010
Attorney Phyllis Shapiro, of University City, is set to become president Jan. 1 of Bais Abraham Congregation, 6910 Delmar Blvd., in University City. The congregation is a diverse, welcoming one and the members include people with a strong Jewish background as well as people new to Torah observance and serves as the shul for many Washington University students and faculty. Link to Article
The St. Louis American
Washington University receives $3.3M for brain tumor research
12/27/2010
With support from a new $3.3 million American Recovery and Reinvestment Act grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis are hunting for normal cells that help brain tumors form and grow. “Cancers are like predators in the ecosystem of the brain, and we usually try to wipe these predators out with various kinds of bombs,” says principal investigator David H. Gutmann, MD, PhD, the Donald O. Schnuck Family Professor of Neurology. Link to Article
The Telegraph (Alton, Ill.)
Universities collaborate on landmark research
12/26/2010
The National Children’s Study, the largest study ever conducted in the United States to learn about the health and development of children, is beginning in St. Louis, led by Saint Louis University School of Public Health with support from the Southern Illinois University School of Nursing, Washington University in St. Louis and the Battelle Center for Public Health Research and Evaluation, the study will examine the effects of the environment and genetics on the growth, development and health of children. Link to Article
St. Louis Post-Dispatch / The Associated Press
SIUC wants to recruit more female students
12/27/2010
Southern Illinois University is looking for a few good women. Officials with the university’s flagship Carbondale campus hope to boost enrollment by addressing a gender disparity at the Carbondale campus, noting that the university consistently had more male students than female students. That held true in 2010, with 10,867 male students outnumbering the 9,170 female ones. Link to Article
New York Times
A quest to explain what grades really mean
12/25/2010
It could be a Zen koan: if everybody in the class gets an A, what does an A mean? The answer: Not what it should, says Andrew Perrin, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. “ As part of the university’s long effort to clarify what grades really mean, Mr. Perrin now leads a committee that is working with the registrar on plans to add extra information — probably median grades, and perhaps more — to transcripts. Link to Article
New York Times
The Choice: demystifying college admissions and aid
12/27/2010
Six seniors at Cherry Creek High, a public school in Denver, blog their college searches.
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