Author: Talia Ogliore

Michael Nowak, research professor of physics in Arts & Sciences, is a member of the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration that won the 2020 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. The award recognizes the team’s achievement of making the first image of a supermassive black hole, “taken by means of an Earth-sized alliance of telescopes.”

Ethically sourced and informed by archaeology, an ambitious new study reports genome-wide DNA information from 523 ancient humans collected at archaeological sites across the Near East and Central and South Asia. Washington University in St. Louis brought key partners together to generate the world’s largest study of ancient DNA, published this week in the journal Science.

Anthropologist T.R. Kidder in Arts & Sciences contributed to one of the first “big data” studies in archaeology to tackle broader questions of how humans have reshaped landscapes, ecosystems and potentially climate over millennia. The analysis published Aug. 30 in the journal Science challenges conventional ideas that man’s impact has been “mostly recent.”

A global study comparing 2,062 birds finds that, in highly variable environments, birds tend to have either larger or smaller brains relative to their body size. New research from Carlos Botero, assistant professor of biology in Arts & Sciences, finds birds with smaller brains tend to use ecological strategies that are not available to big-brained counterparts.

New Arts & Sciences research from Washington University in St. Louis shows that invasive mosquitoes at the northern limit of their current range are surviving conditions that are colder than those in their native territory. This new evidence of rapid local adaptation could have implications for efforts to control the spread of this invasive species.

Investigative journalist Carey Gillam will deliver the first talk of the fall 2019 Agri-Food Workshop lecture series, “Monsanto Trials and Monsanto Papers,” casting a critical eye on industry influence and pesticide science, Aug. 30.

The NSF Center for Sustainable Polymers (CSP) has been awarded a $20 million grant renewal from the National Science Foundation in support of its research. The CSP, based at the University of Minnesota, partners with researchers from around the country, including William Tolman in Arts & Sciences.

Arts & Sciences researcher Kun Wang studies the melted rock that cools into tektites after a meteorite strikes Earth to gain insights into the giant impact event that formed the moon. His latest research was published Aug. 15 in the journal Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta.

Researchers from the Tyson Research Center at Washington University in St. Louis and St. Louis College of Pharmacy have set up 34 motion-activated cameras to capture images of wildlife in area parks and green spaces. Students and volunteers help identify the species in an effort promote local biodiversity and improve the coexistence of humans and wildlife.

The Trump Administration’s proposed overhaul of the landmark Endangered Species Act will “hasten the extinction of countless species,” says Jonathan Losos, director of the Living Earth Collaborative at Washington University in St. Louis and an international biodiversity expert.