Obituary: Brian E. Blank, professor of mathematics and statistics, 65
Brian E. Blank, associate professor of mathematics and statistics in Arts & Sciences, died of heart failure Sunday, Dec. 9, 2018, at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis. He was 65.
Students participate in U.N. global climate summit
Ten students are among representatives from nearly 200 countries gathered in Poland for COP24, the U.N. conference on climate change. This year’s meeting will focus on how to achieve climate goals set in the 2015 Paris Agreement.
McCarthy elected to American Mathematical Society
John E. McCarthy, chair and professor of mathematics and statistics at Washington University, was elected as a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. The society recognized McCarthy for his contributions to operator theory and functions of several complex variables.
Plant’s recycling system important in sickness and in health
Autophagy has a remarkable influence on a plant’s metabolism even under healthy growing conditions, according to new research led by Richard Vierstra in Arts & Sciences.
WashU Expert: Students at every grade need to learn climate science
Even the youngest students are ready to learn about climate science, according to Michael Wysession, professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences in Arts & Sciences and executive director of the Teaching Center at Washington University in St. Louis.
New maps hint at how electric fish got their big brains
Washington University researchers have mapped the regions of the brain in mormyrid fish in extremely high detail. In a study published in the Nov. 15 issue of Current Biology, they report that the part of the brain called the cerebellum is bigger in members of this fish family compared to related fish — and this may be associated with their use of weak electric discharges to locate prey and to communicate with one another.
What a deep dive into the deep blue sea is teaching us
Slow-motion collisions of tectonic plates under the ocean drag about three times more water down into the deep Earth than previously estimated, according to a first-of-its-kind seismic study that spans the Mariana Trench. The work has important implications for the global water cycle, according to Douglas A. Wiens in Arts & Sciences.
Hengen named 2018 Allen Institute Next Generation Leader
Keith Hengen, assistant professor of biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, was selected by the Allen Institute as a 2018 Next Generation Leader. Hengen is one of six early-career neuroscientists who will participate in a special advisory council for the Allen Institute for Brain Science.
Replaying the tape of life: Is it possible?
A review published in the Nov. 9 issue of Science explores the complexity of evolution’s predictability in extraordinary detail. Jonathan Losos of Arts & Sciences takes on a classic question posed by Stephen Jay Gould in an effort to fully interrogate ideas about contingency’s role in evolution.
Inhabited exoplanets topic of 2018 Walker Distinguished Lecture
David Charbonneau, professor of astronomy at Harvard University, will deliver the annual Robert M. Walker Distinguished Lecture at 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 15, in Whitaker Hall, Room 100, on the Danforth Campus of Washington University in St. Louis. The talk, titled “How to Find an Inhabited Exoplanet,” is free and open to the public.
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