Even before COVID-19 and resulting shutdowns created gridlock for some global supply chains, the assortment at many neighborhood supermarkets was dwindling. The cause was not a lack of supply, though, but rather a lack of demand created by a widening income gap in the U.S.
Shantanu Chakrabartty’s laboratory has been working to create sensors that can run on the least amount of energy. His lab has been so successful at building smaller and more efficient sensors, that they’ve run into a roadblock in the form of a fundamental law of physics.Sometimes, however, when you hit what appears to be an impenetrable roadblock, you just have to turn to quantum physics and tunnel through it.
A study from researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis showed that, contrary to expectations, most people with severe COVID-19 do not suffer from unbridled inflammation. The findings suggest that anti-inflammatory therapies may not be helpful for most COVID-19 patients.
The United States may have set itself up for the spread of a pandemic without even knowing it.According to new research from the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, pollution may bear part of the blame for the rapid proliferation in the United States of SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for the spread of COVID-19.
Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have completed a clinical trial suggesting that the antidepressant drug fluvoxamine may help prevent deterioration in COVID-19 patients, making hospitalization less likely.
Males of the extinct human species Paranthropus robustus were thought to be substantially larger than females — much like the size differences seen in modern-day primates such as gorillas, orangutans and baboons. But a new fossil discovery in South Africa instead suggests that P. robustus evolved rapidly during a turbulent period of local climate change about 2 million years ago, resulting in anatomical changes that previously were attributed to sex.
The economy and coronavirus pandemic were two of the top issues for voters in the 2020 election, according to exit poll surveys. Notably, 52% of voters said controlling the pandemic was more important, even if it hurts the economy. But what if we didn't have to choose?
Research from the lab of Kimberly Parker in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis has discovered the mechanism that keeps formulations of the herbicide dicamba from going airborne. And they consider why it sometimes fails.
The food preparation preferences of Chinese cooks — such as the technological choice to boil or steam grains, instead of grinding or processing them into flour — had continental-scale consequences for the adoption of new crops in prehistoric China, according to research from Washington University in St. Louis. A new study in PLOS ONE led by Xinyi Liu, associate professor of archaeology in Arts & Sciences, focuses on the ancient history of staple cereals across China, a country well known for its diverse food products and early adoption of many domesticated plants.
Although viruses such as herpes simplex can infect the eye's cornea and Zika virus has been found in corneal tissue and tears, new research from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggests the cornea can resist infection from the novel coronavirus.
By studying animals choosing between two drink options, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have discovered that the activity of certain neurons in the brain leads directly to the choice of one option over another. The findings could lead to better understanding of how decision-making goes wrong in conditions such as addiction and depression.
Female authors are underrepresented as sole and first authors and as members of authorship teams in readings for undergraduate college courses, finds a new analysis from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.
People who vote are more likely to practice social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic than people with a lower sense of civic duty—regardless of political affiliation, according to a new study from Washington University in St. Louis.
Ning Zhang, assistant professor of engineering The U.S. presidential election is only weeks away. Hackers are hard at work. What exactly are they doing?We often think of hacking as a shadow form of computer engineering – a matter of ones and zeros, of clever coding and hijacked hardware, of software vulnerabilities and brute force attacks.
It was raining iguanas on a sunny morning. Biologist James Stroud’s phone started buzzing early on Jan. 22. A friend who was bicycling to work past the white sands and palm tree edges of Key Biscayne, an island town south of Miami, sent Stroud a picture of a 2-foot-long lizard splayed out on its back. With its feet in the air, the iguana took up most of the sidewalk.
President Donald Trump has consistently touted the economy’s pre-COVID-19 success and recent rebound as one of his greatest successes as president, if not one of the greatest economies in U.S. history. But how strong is the economy really? And how much of that success can be attributed to the president? Three experts from the Olin Business School at Washington University in St.
For decades, evangelical Christian voters — specifically white evangelicals — have been an essential voting bloc for Republican presidential candidates, including Donald Trump. While evangelical support for Trump remains strong in 2020, there is evidence that their support is waning. Most notably, more than 1,600 U.
For a honey bee, few things are more important than recognizing your nestmates. Being able to tell a nestmate from an invader could mean the difference between a honey-stocked hive and a long, lean winter. New research from Washington University in St. Louis shows that honey bees rely on chemical cues related to their shared gut microbial communities, instead of genetic relatedness, to identify members of their colony.
Sugar-sweetened beverage warning labels are effective in dissuading consumers from choosing them, with graphics having the greatest impact, finds a new study from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. However, the United States has yet to pass legislation that would require such warning labels.
Two people, facing each other, talking — let’s call it “excitedly” — are probably the most important ingredients for a debate. They are also a recipe for disaster if one of those two people has a highly contagious virus that has been shown time and again to be transmitted through the air.Taking a cue perhaps from South Carolina Sen.
Two Washington University in St. Louis educators believe that high school students will learn chemistry better when they crunch actual climate data, rather than memorize the periodic table by rote.
Sleep is vitally important for brain function and survival. Yet sleep remains one of the most poorly understood features of life. Keith Hengen, assistant professor of biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, received a three-year $1.8 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to study the role of sleep and waking behavior in shaping the brain’s neural dynamics.
Questions about Amy Coney Barrett’s religious affiliation and beliefs have dominated public discourse since President Donald Trump announced that she was his pick to fill the U.S. Supreme Court seat left vacant by Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s passing. While her faith is considered controversial by some, should it impact her confirmation?John Inazu, the Sally D.
Scientists have identified mutations in single genes that can be responsible for at least some cases of cerebral palsy, according to a new study led by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The study indicates that many of the mutations occur randomly and are not inherited from a child’s parents. The new knowledge could help improve the diagnosis of cerebral palsy and lead to future therapies.
The U.S. Department of Justice Sept. 21 issued a list of “anarchist jurisdictions,” pursuant to an order from President Donald Trump to review federal funding for cities where violence or vandalism has occurred adjacent to protests.If the Trump administration withholds federal funds from these jurisdictions based on the “anarchist” designation, that withholding of funds would violate the Constitution in at least two ways, says a Constitutional law expert at Washington University in St.
Deprived of sunlight, plants are unable to transform carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into sugars. They are essentially starved of one of their most important building blocks. New research with maize shows that plants that lack the core components for autophagy have to get creative about recycling nutrients like carbon when they’re left in the dark.
Researchers have identified two antibodies that protect mice against lethal infections of influenza B virus, report scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Together with an antibody that targets the other major kind of influenza viruses that infect people — influenza A — these antibodies potentially could form the basis of a broad-spectrum flu drug that could treat almost all flu cases.
Research from the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis shows prenatal cannabis exposure may impact child behavior later in life.
There is a growing demand for countries to take aggressive action to combat climate change, but less consensus on how to fund it. In a new study published in Nature Climate Change, researchers asked more than 10,000 people from the U.S., U.K., Germany and France to weigh in.
Older people without cognitive problems who experience a fall may have undetected neurodegeneration in their brains that puts them at high risk of developing Alzheimer’s dementia, according to a study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis
Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have discovered that a molecule produced by the immune system acts on the brain to change the behavior of mice.
Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have created a new PET imaging agent that detects signs of inflammation. Such a tracer could aid diagnosis and study of diseases ranging from cardiovascular disease to cancer to COVID-19.
New research shows consumers strongly prefer "natural," not synthetic, products to prevent ailments. That presents a dilemma. Medical researchers are racing to develop a vaccine for COVID-19. When they do, how receptive will consumers be?
Even before they cast their votes, partisans of different stripes are poised to question the legitimacy of the election outcome, but for different reasons. According to The American Social Survey, sponsored by the Weidenbaum Center at Washington University in St. Louis, nine out of 10 Trump supporters are very or somewhat concerned about fraud in mail-in voting.
Researchers leveraged data from nuclear scattering experiments to make stringent constraints on how neutrons and protons arrange themselves in the nucleus. Their predictions are tightly connected to how large neutron stars grow and what elements are likely synthesized in neutron star mergers.
The coronavirus pandemic has brought a number of challenges to schools, which were forced to close in the spring to help slow the spread of infection. One major challenge for schools was ensuring that students’ nutritional supplementation needs were met when they were not attending school in person.As schools across the country begin to welcome students back in person or for virtual learning, equity must be at the forefront of decisions pertaining to school emergency food services, finds a new study from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.
A new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis identifies a specific gene’s previously unknown role in fertility. When the gene is missing in fruit flies, roundworms, zebrafish and mice, the animals are infertile or lose their fertility unusually early but appear otherwise healthy. Analyzing genetic data in people, the researchers found an association between mutations in this gene and early menopause.
Studying college women with eating disorders, a team led by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis found that a phone-based app that delivers a form of cognitive behavioral therapy was an effective means of intervention in addressing specific disorders.
Repeated exposure to influenza viruses may undermine the effectiveness of the annual flu vaccine. A team of researchers led by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has developed an approach to assess whether a vaccine activates the kind of immune cells needed for long-lasting immunity against new influenza strains. The findings could aid efforts to design an improved flu vaccine.
A key to surviving in the wild is fighting off infection — and not just once. In plants as in humans, one infection may or may not leave a plant with lasting immunity. In fact, an early infection might make things worse. New research from an international team including an assistant professor of biology at Washington University in St. Louis shows that infection actually makes a plant more susceptible to secondary infection — in experiments and in the wild. The findings are published Aug. 31 in Nature Ecology & Evolution.
A new study finds that Earth’s water may have come from materials that were present in the inner solar system at the time the planet formed — instead of far-reaching comets or asteroids delivering such water. The findings published Aug. 28 in Science suggest that Earth may have always been wet.
At a time when evictions and mortgage defaults have been likened to an oncoming tsunami across America, a big-data study of loan-to-value ratios in the wake of the 2007-08 recession carries a cautionary forecast for vexing economic weather ahead:The higher a worker's outstanding mortgage relative to their home value, the worse their future income growth and job mobility.
An international group of hearing specialists has released a new set of recommendations emphasizing that cochlear implants should be offered to adults who have moderate to severe or worse hearing loss much more often than is the current practice. The group hopes the recommendations help increase usage of such devices, potentially improving hearing and quality of life for millions worldwide.
In this age of coronavirus, with vaccine experimentation moving at historic pace to the clinical trials phase, the ideal inoculation policy would emphasize age more than work-exposure risk, according to a study involving Washington University in St. Louis economists.
Using properties of light from fluorescent probes is at the heart of a new imaging technique developed at Washington University's McKelvey School of Engineering that allows for an unprecedented look inside cell membranes.
Scientists have launched a number of human milk and lactation studies to determine if SARS-CoV-2 can be transmitted to infants through human milk. Three scientists, including one from Washington University in St. Louis, wrote a new perspective article in the American Journal of Human Biology making the case for human milk studies co-created with the people whose milk is under investigation — and where study findings are interpreted in the context of real-life choices and experiences.
Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have developed a vaccine that targets the SARS-CoV-2 virus, can be given in one dose via the nose and is effective in preventing infection in mice susceptible to the novel coronavirus. The investigators next plan to test the vaccine in nonhuman primates and humans to see if it is safe and effective in preventing COVID-19 infection.
In light of President Donald Trump’s recent attacks on the United States Postal Service, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act should be revised to prohibit racial discrimination in voting by the federal government, says a Washington University in St. Louis expert on voting rights.“As currently written, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act — a nationwide and permanent prohibition against racial discrimination in voting — applies solely to states and their political subdivisions,” said Travis Crum, associate professor of law and an expert on voting rights, race and federalism.
In uncertain times, it makes sense to manage risk in your endeavors — whether it’s investing in money-making opportunities or deciding where to lay your eggs. Brood parasites are birds that are known to lay their eggs in other birds’ nests. Cowbirds and cuckoos are among the most famous examples of this group.
A longstanding theory has suggested that gastric bypass surgery may have unique, weight loss-independent effects in treating type 2 diabetes. But new research from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis indicates that weight loss after surgery, rather than the surgery itself, drives metabolic improvements, such as the remission of diabetes.
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