Author: Diana Lutz

The University has been selected as one of 19 colleges and universities nationwide that will host the 2007 ExxonMobil Bernard Harris Summer Science Camp, sponsored by ExxonMobil Corp. and led by Bernard Harris, M.D., a former NASA astronaut and the first African-American to conduct a spacewalk.

Courtesy PhotoA scholarly paper on the status of the 127 known caves in the 508-square-mile county shows developers are discarding the formations with impunity, says co-author Robert E. Criss, Ph.D., professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences.

Robert Osburn (yellow helmet, recording and sketching) and WUSTL graduate student Jenny Lippmann (measuring and doing compass readings) conducting the cave survey in a small passage of 23 degree cave in Crawford County, Missouri.The Caves of St. Louis County and the Bridges of Madison County share a common theme: loss. The former, a scholarly paper that appears as the sole entry of the current issue of Missouri Speleology, is a description of some of St. Louis County’s 127 known caves and a warning that development over the past two centuries has eliminated or destroyed many caves in a state that could quite rightly call itself the Cave State. The latter is a tear-jerking novel, made into a movie by Clint Eastwood about a doomed, unlikely love affair, a hallmark of the ’90s with all the permanence of the Backstreet Boys. Caves, though, are in trouble, in St. Louis County, Missouri, and elsewhere, says co-author Robert Criss, Ph.D., professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

The figure shows the dynamics of a slab-tear earthquake (top), compared with a shallow thrust earthquake (bottom). The slab-tearing event typically doesn’t feature an accompanying tsunami.Seismologists at Washington University in St. Louis and their colleagues in Australia, Japan and Tonga have determined why a large earthquake in Tonga did not cause a large tsunami. A tsunami warning was issued around the Pacific Rim following the magnitude 8.0 earthquake on May 3, 2006, but the resulting tsunami was very minor and caused no damage.

Europa, an intriguing moon of Jupiter, could be key in the mystery of the origins of life, said William B. McKinnon, Ph.D., professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences.

Crazy chemistry demonstrations, a paper airplane competition and sticking a person to a wall with duct tape are part of the campus events planned for EnWeek 2007, celebrating National Engineers Week, Feb. 18-24.

Photo by David KilperWUSTL biologists have discovered a large biological clock in the smelling center of mice brains and have revealed that the sense of smell for mice is stronger at night, peaking in evening hours and waning during day light hours. A team led by Erik Herzog, Ph.D., associate professor of biology in Arts & Sciences, discovered the clock in the olfactory bulb, the brain center that aids the mouse in detecting odors.

A University plant evolutionary biologist has received a two-year, $1.12 million grant from the National Science Foundation to perform genetic studies on red rice.

Eric ChouShow me the money.It’s been said by everyone from Cyndi Lauper to Alex Rodriguez that “money changes everything.” Now psychologists at Washington University in St. Louis have published a paper to support that claim. Studying delayed gratification and risk, the psychologists found that people are more likely to wait on collecting full payment for a non-consumable monetary reward than they are for any of three consumable rewards — beer, candy and soda.

Two WUSTL researchers are part of a team that hopes to someday develop smart materials called biomimetics that mimic nature.