Author: Diana Lutz

On January 18, 2007, Min-Sun Son, a dual-degree undergraduate student in biomedical and mechanical engineering logged on to Telesis, Washington University’s Web-based course management system. She recorded the one-millionth log on to Telesis since the program’s inception in the spring 2004 semester.

NASALet’s visit Europa!William B. McKinnon, Ph.D., professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, says the space science community suffers from an embarrassment of riches when pondering which of Jupiter’s moons should be studied next, because they all differ in the way that they can reveal more about planets and how they behave. But he thinks it is Europa that clearly commands the most attention.

Eric ChouTesting the wake-sleep cycleA biologist at Washington University in St. Louis and his collaborators have identified the factor in mammalian brain cells that keeps cells in synchrony so that functions like the wake-sleep cycle, hormone secretion and loco motor behaviors are coordinated daily.

Eric ChouA slice through the earth, showing the attenuation anomalies within the mantle.A seismologist at Washington University in St. Louis has made the first 3-D model of seismic wave damping — diminishing — deep in the Earth’s mantle and has revealed the existence of an underground water reservoir at least the volume of the Arctic Ocean. The research, which analyzed 80,000 shear waves from more than 600,000 seismograms, provides the first evidence for water existing in the Earth’s deep mantle.

Arye Nehorai, Ph.D., the Eugene and Martha Lohman Professor and chair of the Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering in the School of Engineering & Applied Science, has won the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ Signal Processing Society (SPS) 2007 Technical Achievement Award.

Engineers from General Motors (www.gm.com) will come to the Washington University Danforth campus Thursday, Jan. 25, 2007 at Whitaker Hall to discuss their fuel-efficient technologies and vehicles from 3 to 5 p.m. that day. In addition, Washington University will be presenting an overview of its research and educational efforts in the energy and environmental area, as well as providing a vision of the newly created Department of Energy, Environmental and Chemical Engineering (www.eec.wustl.edu). Following these presentations in the Whitaker Hall Auditorium that begin at 3 p.m., vehicles will be on display in the Whitaker Hall parking lot near the corner of Forest Park Parkway and Skinker Boulevard.

Photo by David KilperMechanical and aerospace engineering seniors Topher McFarland (left) and Rahul Bhinge (kneeling) demonstrate their creation, a computer artist nicknamed “Action Jackson” designed to paint in the style of Jackson Pollock at the Dec. 8 Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Design Fair in Whitaker Hall.

Photo courtesy NASAStrange Brew: Astronomers are debating whether the matter in these stars is composed of free quarks or crystals of sub-nuclear particles, rather than neutrons.According to the “Strange Matter Hypothesis”, which gained popularity in the paranormal 1980’s, nuclear matter, too, can be strange. The hypothesis suggests that small conglomerations of quarks, the infinitesimally tiny particles that attract by a strong nuclear force to form neutrons and protons in atoms, are the true ground state of matter. The theory has captivated particle physicists worldwide, including one of Washington University’s own. Mark Alford, Ph.D., Washington University in St. Louis assistant professor of physics in Arts & Sciences, and collaborators from MIT and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory, have used mathematical modeling to discover some properties of theoretical “strange stars,” composed entirely of quark matter. More…

“I smell a rat!” Researchers have found that the sense of smelling in mice is affected by a biological clock devoted entirely to olfaction — smelling stuff, like sleeping and waking, is on a daily cycle.Biologists at Washington University in St. Louis 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., Washington University associate professor of Biology in Arts & Sciences, discovered the clock in the olfactory bulb, the brain center that aids the mouse in detecting odors. More…

Photo by David Kilper / WUSTL PhotoKenneth Olsen, Ph.D., assistant professor of biology in Arts & Sciences, examines a cultivated rice plant in the Goldfarb Greenhouse.Red rice sounds like a New Orleans dish or a San Francisco treat. But it’s a weed, the biggest nuisance to American rice growers, who are the fourth largest exporters of rice in the world. And rice farmers hate the pest, which, if harvested along with domesticated rice, reduces marketability and contaminates seed stocks. Complicating matters is the fact that red rice and cultivated rice are exactly the same species, so an herbicide cannot be developed that seeks out only red rice. It would kill cultivated rice, too. But now a plant evolutionary biologist at Washington University in St. Louis has been funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) at $1.12 million for two years to perform genetic studies on red rice to understand molecular differences between the two that someday could provide the basis for a plan to eradicate the weed. More…