AsiaNews.it
Hong Kong becoming a leading centre for genomic research
12/29/2010
Hong Kong is poised to become international gene sequencing and genomics research hub, thanks to Beijing’s drive to turn the country into an international science powerhouse by 2020. Already it houses some of the world’s most powerful supercomputers and gene sequencers, the result of it hosting key laboratory of mainland’s dominant genomic company, BGI. To put that in perspective, BGI has about the same capacity as the three largest genome centres in the United States, including the Broad Institute, Washington University and Baylor College of Medicine combined. Link to Article
Scientific American – Mind Matters
Slipping the ‘Cognitive Straitjacket’ of Psychiatric Diagnosis
12/28/2010
It can fairly be said that modern psychiatric diagnosis was “born” in a 1970 paper on schizophrenia. The authors, Washington University psychiatry professors Eli Robins and Samuel B. Guze, rejected the murky psychoanalytic diagnostic formulations of their time. Instead, they embraced a medical model inspired by the careful 19th-century observational work of Emil Kraepelin, long overlooked during the mid-20th-century dominance of Freudian theory. Link to Article
Astrobiology Magazine
Astrobiology Top 10: Trapped Rover Finds Evidence of Water on Mars
12/29/2010
Astrobiology Magazine is highlighting the top 10 stories of 2010. At number 5 is evidence from NASA’s Spirit rover that water trickled into the subsurface of Mars fairly recently. The story, originally published 10/30/2010, includes comments from Ray Arvidson of Washington University in St. Louis, deputy principal investigator for the twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity. Link to Article
Harvard Business School Working Knowledge
The Psychological Costs of Pay-for-Performance: Implications for Strategic Compensation
Publication Date: 12/28/2010
Extract: Three psychological factors most prominently influence employee compensation strategy: social comparison processes, overconfidence, and loss aversion on the part of employees, suggests research conducted by Harvard Business School professors Francesca Gino and Ian Larkin, and Lamar Pierce of Washington University in St. Louis. Link to Article
ARCHITECT Online
Does Maki Deserve the Gold Medal?
12/28/2010
Aaron Betsky is a bit surprised to hear that Fumihiko Maki is to be awarded the AIA’s Gold Medal. He’s not sure whether Maki is receiving the Award because his lifetime of work deserves American architecture’s highest honor, or because the AIA has such a history of mediocrity. Betsky offers faint praise for Maki’s work on the new art center at Washington University in Saint Louis, describing it as “a pleasantly scaled container of pleasant spaces.” Link to Article
Science Blog
Protein helps parasite survive in host cells
12/28/2010
Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have learned why changes in a single gene, ROP18, contribute substantially to dangerous forms of the parasite Toxoplasma gondii. The answer has likely moved science a step closer to new ways to beat Toxoplasma and many other parasites. In a study published in Cell Host & Microbe, scientists show that the ROP18 protein disables host cell proteins that would otherwise pop a protective bubble the parasite makes for itself. Link to Article
Kansas City infoZine
Entrepreneurs Should Plan Exit Strategy Early
12/28/2010
Clifford Holekamp, senior lecturer in entrepreneurship at Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis, admits his advice may sound strange, but he speaks from experience. He tells entrepreneurs in an article published this month in Octane, the quarterly magazine of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization, that it’s important to plan how to leave a company while planning to launch it. Link to Article
St. Louis Beacon
Kit Bond: A groundbreaking career in Missouri politics
12/28/2010
U.S. Sen. Christopher S. “Kit” Bond broke a lot of political ground for Missouri Republicans in four decades since he and former U.S. Sen. John C. Danforth of St. Louis ended the party’s long drought in attaining statewide offices. Bond is leaving public service — not retiring but focusing his efforts on law and a business consultancy. In a wide-ranging interview with the Beacon, he discussed his 40-year political career. Link to Article
St. Louis Riverfront Times
Mad Scientists at Wash U Want to Get Inside Your Head
12/28/2010
Imagine the brain as a gazillion-piece jigsaw puzzle, with unique meaning to each piece. Researchers at Washington University are working to analyze every single one of those pieces, and then figure out what makes them fit together with other pieces in unique patterns. In other words, they wanna understand what makes each individual mind look different from the others. Link to Article
News in Higher Education
Boston Globe
Harvard missed signs it was being hoodwinked
12/28/2010
Fooling the gatekeepers of the nation’s most selective university wasn’t as hard as it looks. Adam Butler Wheeler, portrayed upon his arrest for fraud as a con artist whose brilliant forgeries landed him a coveted spot at Harvard, won over the admissions committee with an application rife with inconsistencies and an inscrutable personal essay, despite fake faculty recommendations that repeatedly praised his lucid writing. Link to Article
The Herald-Sun
Duke Health System starts 800M expansion
12/28/2010
The bulldozers got moving this year on what will be the largest expansion Duke University Health System has seen in decades. Construction has begun on more than $800 million worth of expansion, which will bring the campus an additional million square feet, 20 percent more hospital beds, 16 more operating rooms, new patient resource centers, high-tech classrooms, enlarged space for research and teaching and a greater focus on the patient. Link to Article
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