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The global food systems that keep more than 8 billion people fed come at a huge cost to public health and the environment in terms of climate change, wasteful and unsustainable production practices, and diseases of overnutrition, undernutrition and malnutrition. These costs will only rise as the global population continues to grow. To ensure that nourishing food is accessible and available to all while staying within planetary limits, the world must transform how food is produced, distributed and consumed.

Rodrigo Siqueira Reis was running in a park in Curitiba, Brazil, on a weekend morning when he realized he had spent years approaching health backward. Around him, people were playing pickup soccer, jogging, and walking. They were simply living in a space that made movement natural, joyful, and free.

Switzerland’s multilingualism was an inescapable reminder that transcultural research is as much about studying trade objects as it is about linguistic and cultural understanding. For me, this trip was less about digesting large volumes of historical material and more about mapping the terrain—finding out what is where, and what I need to prepare before beginning my dissertation work in earnest.

A new study from Washington University in St. Louis, published October 15 in Communications Biology, presents compelling evidence to support the hypothesis that humans evolved from an African ape-like ancestor.

More than 20 years ago, Jonathan Losos was in the Bahamas pursuing one of his favorite pastimes — catching and measuring anole lizards — when he spotted a familiar reptilian flash on a branch. A chance encounter by him inspired a team of biologists to study lizards with missing or reduced limbs.

For the first time, the Prevention Research Center (PRC) at Washington University in St. Louis has taken its signature Evidence-Based Public Health training program (EBPH) to a U.S. territory. This summer, the EBPH faculty delivered the course over three and half days in Caguas, Puerto Rico. 

A team of WashU researchers and engineers has won a $3.9 million grant from the National Science Foundation to build and install gamma-ray cameras for the Small-Sized Telescopes of the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory (CTAO), the smallest of the three classes of telescopes the observatory will deploy. The telescopes are planned for the observatory’s Southern Hemisphere site in Paranal, Chile.

In the hot southern Egypt sun, a monument to modern ambition bisects the Nile — a massive rockfill dam once hailed as a triumph of engineering, anticolonial defiance and national pride. But beneath the surface of this vast construction lies a deeper, more complex story — one of displacement, Cold War deal-making, pan-Arab solidarity and shifting landscapes both physical and political.

Join us for an afternoon showcasing the latest research of WashU faculty members and researchers working across borders and disciplines to respond to humanity’s most pressing challenges. Featured presenters are recipients of Global Incubator Seed Grants, which harness the power of our international partnerships to advance innovative research in areas aligned with the university’s strategic plan. The program culminates with awards and recognitions celebrating research excellence at WashU.

To Lora Iannotti, MA, PhD, an expert on global maternal and child nutrition, the images of famine coming out of Gaza these days are heartbreaking and appalling. She knows more than most what the consequences of famine can be.