Author: Diana Lutz

A tiny cage of gold covered with a smart polymer responds to light, opening to empty its contents and resealing when the light is turned off. The smart nanocages could be used to deliver drugs directly to target sites, thus avoiding systemic side effects.

The architects of the National Research Council’s roadmap for the next decade, “America’s Energy Future: Technology and Transformation,” will meet with top officers of energy companies today to discuss this capstone report that recommends investing in clean energy technologies. The meeting will be held from 12:30 to 5:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 2, 2009, at Washington University’s May Auditorium in Simon Hall.

America has the potential to solve its energy crisis over the next decade, but doing so will require immediate investment in clean energy technologies, says Mark S. Wrighton, chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis and vice chair of a National Resource Council report on America’s energy challenges. The report will be the topic of a symposium to be held from 12:30 to 5:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 2, in the May Auditorium in Simon Hall on the Danforth Campus of Washington University in St. Louis.

Andrew H. Knoll, Ph.D., Fisher Professor of Natural History and professor of earth and planetary sciences at Harvard University, will discuss the evidence for life on Mars at 7 p.m. Oct. 30 in Room 300, Laboratory Sciences Building, on the Danforth Campus of Washington University in St. Louis.

Intrigued by the discovery last February of Corot-7b, a rocky exoplanet, WUSTL scientists set out to investigate its atmosphere the only way so-far possible: by simulation.

Everyone knows that frogs are in trouble. But a recent analysis by Washington University in St. Louis researchers of data on Central American frogs collected by a University of Maryland colleague shows the situation is worse than had been thought.

Younan XiaMaterial scientists at Washington University in St. Louis have developed a technique for a bimetallic fuel cell catalyst that is efficient, robust and two-to-five times more effective than commercial catalysts. The novel technique eventually will enable a cost effective fuel cell technology, which has been waiting in the wings for decades and should give a boost for cleaner use of fuels worldwide.

President Barack Obama has appointed Barbara A. Schaal, Ph.D., the Mary-Dell Chilton Distinguished Professor of biology in Arts & Sciences and vice president of the National Academy of Sciences, to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

Robotics and engineering first caught Fiona Turett’s fancy at NASA Space Academy in Huntsville, Ala., when she was 13. It was the first of many NASA programs in which Turett, who graduates May 15 with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, has participated. At her high school in Rochester Hills, Mich., she participated in For […]

Flynn Park Elementary 4th graders of University City and Washington University Outreach faculty will perform “hands-on” nanotechnology experiments.