New research demonstrates that obesity does not always go hand in hand with metabolic changes in the body that can lead to diabetes, heart disease and stroke. Samuel Klein, MD, and other School of Medicine researchers found that a subset of obese people do not have common metabolic abnormalities associated with obesity — and don’t develop them when they gain weight.​

Does the recent decision by President Barack Obama to restore diplomatic relations with Cuba truly represent fresh opportunity? Or is it merely the latest chapter in a long, tortuous narrative of manipulation and misunderstanding? At 6 p.m. tonight, Cuban novelist Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo will discuss “U.S.-Cuba: A New Era or a New Ire?” in the Danforth University Center.

The Assembly Series, Washington University’s premier speaker series, continues to bring distinguished experts, scholars and newsmakers to campus. The series explores universal concerns while it aims to promote deeper discussions across the university. The spring 2015 schedule begins at noon Thursday, Jan. 22, with sociologist and urban planner Xavier de Souza Briggs, PhD.

During the 1950s and ’60s, Washington University emerged as one of the nation’s most important regional centers for postwar abstract art — due in large part to the efforts of curator William N. Eisendrath Jr. “From Picasso to Fontana: Collecting Modern and Postwar Art in the Eisendrath Years, 1960-68” opens Friday, Jan. 23, at the Kemper Art Museum.

Lihong Wang, PhD, continues to build on his groundbreaking technology that allows light deep inside living tissue during imaging and therapy. In Nature Communications, Wang, the Gene K. Beare Professor of Biomedical Engineering, reveals for the first time a new technique that focuses diffuse light inside a dynamic scattering medium containing living tissue.