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News Highlights Quarter 3, 2007
Nov. 5,
2007 --
Washington University faculty and staff make news around the world. The following is a sampling of coverage in major media from clippings and electronic sources from the period above.
Joke comprehension may decrease with age, study at St. Louis university suggests
| It's no laughing matter: a new study suggests older adults have a harder time getting jokes as they age.
The research indicates that because older adults may have greater difficulty with cognitive flexibility, abstract reasoning and short-term memory, they also have greater difficulty with tests of humor comprehension.
The research conducted by WUSTL graduate student Wingyun Mak and WUSTL psychology professor Brian Carpenter.
Findings were published earlier this month in the Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society.
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International Herald Tribune (France), and also ran in Guardian Unlimited (UK), China Daily, Toronto Star (Canada), Xinhua (China), Zee News (India), Leading The Charge (Australia), Newsweek, Time, Forbes, Washington Post
and 196 others.
When it comes to walking, we've got the jump on chimps
| A new study has found that walking on two legs is 75% easier for you than it is for a chimpanzee. David Raichlen and Herman Pontzer, professors at the University of Arizona and WUSTL, respectively, investigated the costs of walking upright and on all fours in chimps and humans.
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Los Angeles Times, and also ran in Monsters and Critics.com (UK), Stuff.co.nz (New Zealand), Scientist Live (UK), Scotsman (UK), People's Daily Online (China), China Daily (China), DigitalJournal.com (Canada), The Statesman (India), NewKerala.com (India), Zee News (India)
and 8 others.
When the limits push back
| The public appetite for the psychological intricacies of risk is being served by the release of two new movies about people who sought out extreme environments, then died in them.
WUSTL psychiatry professor Robert Cloninger says not all risk takers are the same. He is the author of Feeling Good: The Science of Well-Being. Cloninger comments about Steve Fossett and others.
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The New York Times
Ancient nomads offer insights to modern crises
| Every summer for the past eight years, WUSTL anthropologist Michael Frachetti has come to the desert steppe that rolls like endless yellow waves across this expansive Central Asian nation of Kazakhstan searching for evidence of a vast, connected nomadic society.
His work concerns Bronze Age nomads, and his scholarship is aimed purely at a historical understanding of how a preliterate society functioned more than 3,000 years ago. But his work coincides with a geopolitical reality that has important implications for American foreign policy makers: many of the countries that most trouble the West -- like Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia -- have government institutions that reflect a nomadic past.
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The New York Times, and also ran in International Herald Tribune
Straightening bent fingers, no surgery required
| Needle aponeurotomy, which leaves only superficial puncture wounds, was developed 30 years ago by a group of French rheumatologists and is now being practiced in the United States by fewer than a dozen physicians. Thousands of patients are flocking to these doctors every year, many against the advice of hand surgeons who say open hand surgery is more effective. ''Surgery has a lower recurrence rate,'' said Dr. Richard Gelberman, chairman of the department of orthopedics at Washington University in St. Louis, and president of the American Society for Surgery of the Hand.
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The New York Times
Judge rejects charges for 13 on tax shelter
| A federal judge dismissed charges yesterday against 13 former employees of the accounting firm KPMG, delivering a blow to prosecutors who once heralded the case as a showpiece in the government's crusade against questionable tax shelters.
Judge Lewis Kaplan of Federal District Court in Manhattan ruled that he had no choice but to dismiss the charges because the government had strong-armed KPMG into not paying the legal fees of defendants and had violated their rights.
WUSTL criminal justice professor Kathleen Brickey comments on the case.
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The New York Times
The new safeties
| With more students applying each year, many colleges that were traditionally considered safeties, including WUSTL, have shed that label, sending applicants scrambling to find replacements.
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The New York Times
Two plead guilty in dogfighting case tied to vick
| Two more individuals who pleaded not guilty last month along with Michael Vick to charges stemming from a dog fighting ring agreed to plea agreements with the government. He faces three felony charges related to dog fighting and could face up to five years in prison and as much as a $250,000 fine if found guilty. Christopher Bracey, a professor of law and African American Studies at WUSTL, comments in a telephone interview.
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The New York Times, and also ran in WIBW (KS), Newsday (NY), CBS News (NY) online and Fox News -- The O'Reilly Factor
Analysis: Bush recasts war rationale
| WUSTL English professor Wayne Fields, who is an expert on presidential rhetoric, comments on President Bush's speech on Iraq.
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Associated Press, and also ran in Guardian Unlimited (UK), International Herald Tribune (France), Live-PR.com (Austria), Ottawa Recorder (Canada), Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Seattle Post Intelligencer, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, FOX News
and 28 others.
A most unlikely father and son
| This past Friday, on the CBS Evening News, Steve Hartman's "Assignment America" segment featured the special relationship between WUSTL architecture professor Bob Hansman and his adopted son Jovan.
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CBS Evening News / Assignment America, and also ran in WRGB (CBS) Albany (NY), KPHO (CBS) Phoenix (AZ), WCBS (CBS) New York (NY), WBZ (CBS) Boston (MA), WFMY (CBS) Greensboro (NC) and WTVF (CBS) Nashville (TN)
In milestone, FDA pushes genetic tests tied to drug
| A case featuring a St. Louis woman and the powerful blood thinner called warfarin shows the advances in personalized medicine, where treatment is tailored to an individual's genetic makeup. But, in a possible harbinger of battles to come, the warfarin tests have also led to a clash between the FDA and some doctors. WUSTL medical researcher Brian Gage comments.
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The Wall Street Journal
How a patent ruling Is changing court cases
| Three months after the Supreme Court handed down what many called a landmark patent decision, judges have begun to rule in favor of companies defending themselves against infringement lawsuits.
Some experts in law and economics think affording judges discretion in analyzing an obviousness defense is not a good thing. "Flexibility has an Achilles' heel, which is that people with the biggest lobbying and litigation budgets, and the best public relations, win," said Scott Kieff, a WUSTL law professor, who has argued for predictable rules in the patent system.
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The Wall Street Journal
The day the music died
| Article looks at the devastating effect the 1967 Detroit riot had on black economic development and its entrepreneurial gem, Motown Records. It plunged the city into a four-decade economic decline that is only now beginning to turn around.
WUSTL professor Gerald Early, author of One Nation Under a Groove: Motown and American Culture, is one of the experts commenting on the events of that time.
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The Wall Street Journal
Cheery customers spend more
| News item on research by WUSTL accounting professor Raj Mashruwala and a Temple U. colleague that suggested that there is a link between satisfied customers and a store's profits, but only when competition is stiff. Their study will appear in Contemporary Accounting Research.
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U.S. News & World Report
Patients take action on early Alzheimer's
| Say "Alzheimer's" and most people think of a confused, disoriented older person slumped in a wheelchair, says John Morris, a neurologist at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. People with mild forms of the disease do have some forgetfulness, but they usually can perform most daily activities without help, he says.
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USA Today, and also ran in Sports Weekly
Retirement Cash: Will You Have Enough?
| There's a gap between the dream of retirement and the reality Americans face. A recent study from WUSTL School of Social Work estimates that 4 out of 10 people over age 60 will fall below the poverty line at some point in their later years. Countless more will watch their dream retirement fade as they discover that their savings barely cover their immediate needs. But the prospect of fiscal free fall has yet to alter most Americans' behavior, and baby boomers are saving a scant third of what they'll need.
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Readers Digest (NY)
Dr. Louis Arrone discusses new research showing some obesity may be caused by virus
| Matt Lauer hosts this segment and speaks with nutrition experts about new research that suggests that some types of obesity may be linked to a common virus.
WUSTL nutrition researcher Samuel Klein is one of the experts commenting.
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NBC Today Show
GMA medical alert; does soda create heart risk?
| We've known that all those calories and sugar in regular soda can be a problem. But now a new study says even diet soda could put you in harm's way. Specifically, soda drinkers are at a 31% increased risk of obesity, a 30% increased likelihood of an expanding waistline, and a 25% increased risk of have been abnormal sugar levels. WUSTL's Connie Diekman says the study does not conclusively show the risk.
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ABC News
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