Author: Talia Ogliore

Guido L. Weiss, the Elinor Anheuser Professor Emeritus of Mathematics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, died Dec. 25, 2021, of Alzheimer’s disease. Weiss was a prominent mathematician, former chair of the Department of Mathematics and an active member of the university community. He was 92.

A new isotope of magnesium — magnesium-18 — was discovered by a team that includes Robert Charity, research professor of chemistry, and Lee Sobotka, professor of chemistry and of physics, both in Arts & Sciences, as reported in the journal Physical Review Letters.

Scientists at Washington University in St. Louis described for the first time the structure of a bifunctional protein, called CcsBA, that transports heme and attaches it to cytochromes. The study led by Robert Kranz, professor of biology in Arts & Sciences, captured two conformational states of CcsBA, a bacterial and chloroplast protein, allowing researchers to characterize the enzyme mechanism.

X-ray telescopes observe the most extreme and hottest objects in the universe. Physicists in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis are playing key roles in the first dedicated X-ray polarimetry missions, including one that launched this month.

Rock formations called shut-ins confine a section of a river, forcing water to flow between the steep walls of a canyon or gorge. Shut-ins are found in streams and rivers across the Ozarks. But some of the most outstanding shut-ins in the state are located at Johnson’s Shut-Ins State Park, where Washington University scientists are studying bedrock river erosion.

Irene Antony, a neuroscience major in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, won the Trainee Professional Development Award from the Society for Neuroscience.

Trail cameras have captured 567 pictures of local turkeys as part of the St. Louis Wildlife Project, an effort led by scientists at Tyson Research Center and the University of Health Sciences and Pharmacy in St. Louis.

Kevin D. McKeegan, a scientist whose analyses of meteorites and other extraterrestrial materials from space has improved understanding of the processes and chronology of the early solar system, will deliver a free public talk in November as part of the Robert M. Walker Distinguished Lecture, sponsored by the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences.

Strange ‘eggshell planets’ are among the rich variety of exoplanets possible, according to a study from Washington University in St. Louis. These rocky worlds have an ultra-thin outer brittle layer and little to no topography. Such worlds are unlikely to have plate tectonics, raising questions as to their habitability. The research led by planetary geologist Paul Byrne in Arts & Sciences offers concrete ways that other scientists could identify such eggshell planets.

Each fall, the leaves of almost half of North America’s species of trees and shrubs turn red. Biologist Susanne S. Renner at Washington University in St. Louis helps explain why the North American fall is so red, compared with Europe, and also what changes to fall foliage we can expect under climate change.