Author: Talia Ogliore

A new study co-authored by biologist Jonathan Myers in Arts & Sciences provides key insights into how and why tree populations migrate in response to climate change. The research was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

A new analysis led by geophysicist Anne M. Hofmeister in Arts & Sciences provides an alternative to the mantle convection hypothesis. The study is published in a special paper of the Geological Society of America.

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.