Author: Talia Ogliore

Carlos Botero, assistant professor of biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, finds that parasitic birds living in more variable and unpredictable habitats tend to hedge their bets by laying eggs in the nests of a greater variety and number of hosts. The study is published Aug. 21 in Nature Communications.

The behavior of electrons determines the fundamental properties of any material, such as its ability to conduct electricity. Erik Henriksen, assistant professor of physics in Arts & Sciences, takes advantage of strange-but-true qualities of graphene to search for correlated motion of electrons.

Rebecca J. Lester, professor of sociocultural anthropology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, won a 2020 Victor Turner Prize in Ethnographic Writing for her book, “Famished: Eating Disorders and Failed Care in America.”

African fish called mormyrids communicate using pulses of electricity. New research from biologists in Arts & Sciences shows that a time-shifted signal in the brain helps the fish to ignore their own pulse. This skill has co-evolved with large and rapid changes in these signals across species.

Red bricks — some of the world’s cheapest and most familiar building materials — can be converted into energy storage units that can be charged to hold electricity, like a battery, according to new research from chemists in Arts & Sciences.

Older male rhesus monkeys sire fewer offspring. Sperm quality or quantity, or the survival of infants, may decline with the age of the would-be father, a new study from biological anthropologist Krista Milich in Arts & Sciences suggests.

Undergraduates in the class “Anthropology of Infectious Diseases” in Arts & Sciences presented their findings during a remote symposium held April 22. The event was the last gathering for students in a course that became far more consequential than anyone could have predicted.

A study by biologist Amanda Koltz in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis suggests that as female wolf spiders become larger and produce more offspring, competition among them increases — triggering higher rates of cannibalism and reducing the number of young spiders that survive to adulthood.

New research led by anthropologists at Washington University in St. Louis shows that encounters between gorilla groups were much more frequent, and that they had more varied social exchanges than expected. The effort is part of a long-term collaboration with the Congolese government and Wildlife Conservation Society that is changing perspectives on gorilla behavior, ecology and health.

A new study from Washington University in St. Louis is the first to demonstrate evolutionary response to hurricanes on a wide geographic scale.