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University News
Research
Features
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HEARD ON CAMPUS
“[The Founders] understood that natural rights could not be asserted,
celebrated, and defended unless nature, including human nature, was regarded as a normative rather than a merely contingent fact. This was a view buttressed by the teaching of biblical religion that nature is not chaos but rather is the replacement of chaos by an order reflecting the mind and will of the Creator. This is the Creator who endows us with natural rights that are inevitable, inalienable, and
universal--and hence the foundation of democratic equality. And these rights are the foundation of limited government--government defined by the limited goal of securing those rights so that individuals may flourish in their free and responsible exercise of those rights...
A nation such as ours, steeped in and shaped by biblical religion, cannot comfortably accomodate a politics that takes its bearings from the proposition that human nature is a malleable product of social forces, and that improving human nature, perhaps unto perfection, is a proper purpose of politics. I will go further. Biblical religion is concerned with asserting and defending the dignity of the individual. Biblical religion teaches that individual dignity is linked to individual responsibility and moral agency. Therefore, biblical religion should be wary of the consequences of government untethered from the limiting purpose of securing natural rights.”
~ George F. Will, Pulitzer Prize-winning political journalist and author, during his address, “Religion and Politics in the First Modern Nation,” the fall 2012 keynote speech for the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics, on December 4 in Graham Chapel
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KUDOS:
Michael Brent,
PhD; Raj Jain, PhD; Arye Nehorai, PhD; Alison Goate, DPhil; Jeanne M. Nerbonne, PhD; D.C. Rao, PhD; and Barry Sleckman, MD, PhD, have been named fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world's largest general scientific society. The WUSTL faculty members are among 702 new fellows recognized by their peers for scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications. |
Washington University
has been named the 2012 Truman Foundation Honor Institution. The University was chosen because of its two Truman Scholarship winners this year and its sustained success in helping students win Truman Scholarships to pursue careers in public service.
Leila Nadya Sadat,
JD, the Henry H. Oberschelp Professor of Law, has been appointed special advisor on crimes against humanity by the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court. Sadat, director of WUSTL's Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute, is an internationally recognized expert in international criminal law, human rights, and public international law.
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University News
Super-TIGER members observe the balloon launch in Antarctica on December 9. The balloon headed straight west.
PHOTO: Richard Bose
The Super-TIGER cosmic-ray experiment had a perfect launch December 9 at 9:45 a.m. New Zealand Daylight Time. The enormous balloon that will carry it to the limits of Earth’s atmosphere was stretched out on the ice and then partially filled. (It rounds out nicely as it rises into the stratosphere.) As it came up off the ice, the balloon rose directly over the downstream instrument, which was held by a crane on an enormous truck named the Boss, after the polar explorer Shackleton. If the balloon isn’t overhead when it is released, it swings like a pendulum and bashes into the ice. In this case, everything went beautifully; the Boss barely moved, and the balloon lifted the two-ton instrument effortlessly into the sky. ... more
Thanks in part to key support on campus, Sarah Myers Tlapek, a PhD candidate in the Brown School, will be leaving for Rwanda in February as one of 14 Fulbright scholarship recipients from Washington University. Applications to the U.S. Fulbright Program from WUSTL hit a record high this year, helping the university once again reach the list of top U.S. Fulbright producers. ... more
Pulitzer Prize-winning political journalist and author George F. Will visited campus Dec. 4 to deliver the fall 2012 keynote speech for the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics in Graham Chapel. While on campus, he had lunch with a group of students, met faculty members affiliated with the Danforth Center, and sat down with Marie Griffith, PhD, the John C. Danforth Distinguished University Professor in the Humanities and center director. ... more
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Research
Pediatric program for brain injuries saves lives, reduces disabilities
Drew Mitchem of Oran, Mo., is closely monitored at St. Louis Children’s Hospital a few days after suffering a severe head injury in a January 2010 sledding accident. Drew, 11 at the time, was treated according to protocol established by the hospital’s pediatric neurocritical care program. He was one of 123 patients in a study of the program’s outcomes that showed great benefits of such an approach. Drew, now 14, had a full recovery.
Children with traumatic brain injuries are more likely to survive and avoid long-term disabilities when treated aggressively as part of a designated neurocritical care program that brings together neurologists, neurosurgeons, trauma and other critical-care specialists, according to a new study at Washington University School of Medicine. Investigators tracked the results of such a program at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. They studied the outcome of 123 cases before and after the hospital launched a pediatric neurocritical care program (PNCP) in September 2005. ... more
With college application deadlines looming, many prospective students are aware of the burden that comes with a college education. Some may even decide not to apply for fear of burying themselves in debt. The U.S. Department of Education recently launched the first large-scale test of college savings accounts when it incorporated a college savings and financial counseling component into GEAR UP (Gaining Early Awareness for Undergraduate Programs), its initiative to prepare youth for college. ... more
Coming up with creative, fresh ideas does not necessarily imply that they will ultimately be put into practice. “Having a creative idea is simply not enough. Unless people are driven to push their ideas through the organization and can rely on a couple of key supporters along the way, creative ideas are doomed to remain just that — ideas,” says Markus Baer, PhD, associate professor of organizational behavior in the John M. Olin School of Business. ... more
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Features
The powerful LED runs at 0.5 watts but emits the light of a 40-watt incandescent bulb.
You try doing homework in the dark. For school-aged children across much of the developing world, access to electrical lighting remains precarious. Many rural farming villages exist “off the grid.” Major cities from Nairobi to Kolkata are subject to regular blackouts — a phenomenon from which even the United States, as Hurricane Sandy demonstrated, is not entirely immune. Enter the Little Sun. Designed by Danish artist Olafur Eliasson and engineer Frederik Ottesen, Little Sun is a small, powerful and inexpensive solar-powered lamp. The almost shockingly bright LED, encased in tough, cheerful yellow plastic, shines up to five hours on a four-hour charge. ... more
Walk into the Green Bean restaurant in St. Louis’ Central West End neighborhood and you’ll see lots of color — from the green leaves painted on the walls to the chopped red peppers, orange carrots, purple onions and other fresh vegetables and meats stored neatly in gleaming stainless-steel containers. Once a customer places an order for a salad or wrap, the process from preparation to presentation is an efficient system seemingly designed by an engineer with a penchant for the environment, since all materials used for the restaurant are sustainable, and utensils, cups and containers are compostable. ... more
For several years, Mark Manary’s chief professional goal has been to “fix malnutrition for kids in Africa.” Manary, MD, the Helene B. Roberson Professor of Pediatrics, has been most notably tackling the problem with ready-to-use therapeutic food, a simple yet revolutionary peanut-butter mixture fed to severely and moderately malnourished children. ... more |
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