Author: Talia Ogliore

In a growing plant cell, motor proteins called kinesins work as transporters that haul materials built in one part of the cell to the place where they are needed. Now, biologists at Washington University in St. Louis have discovered the molecular brakeman that holds kinesins in check until their cargo is needed.

There’s a new way to look at how electrons interact with each other in graphene, an intriguing material comprised of a single layer of carbon atoms. Washington University in St. Louis researchers, led by Erik Henriksen, assistant professor of physics in Arts & Sciences, are exploring the quantum electronic properties of graphene using infrared light.

Using new gene sequencing techniques, Washington University biologists are taking a closer look at the behavior of the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum, or Dicty for short.

Elizabeth S. Haswell, associate professor of biology in Arts & Sciences, has been elected as a council delegate for biological sciences for the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Her term began Feb. 20.

The St. Louis premiere of “The Surrounding Game” will be Monday, Feb. 26, at the Landmark Tivoli Theatre on the Delmar Loop. The award-winning documentary film was directed and produced by Cole Pruitt, a PhD candidate in chemistry in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation announced Feb. 15 that Timothy A. Wencewicz, assistant professor of chemistry in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has been awarded a 2018 Sloan Research Fellowship. He is among 126 outstanding U.S. and Canadian researchers selected as fellowship recipients this year.

A new study in Parasites & Vectors finds ticks in urban parks dominated by an invasive rose bush are nearly twice as likely to be infected with the bacteria that causes Lyme disease, as compared to ticks from uninvaded forest fragments. But the trend reverses itself at a broader scale.

A rare, coastal flowering plant known as Tidestrom’s lupine — threatened by native deer mice that can munch up to three-quarters of its unripe fruits under cover of an invasive beachgrass — has been given a new life with the large-scale removal of that grass, a long-term study in the journal Restoration Ecology shows.

In a sneak attack, some pathogenic microbes manipulate plant hormones to gain access to their hosts undetected. Biologists at Washington University in St. Louis have exposed one such interloper by characterizing the unique biochemical pathway it uses to synthesize auxin, a central hormone in plant development.

Researchers have created a novel polymer that changes color and contracts when exposed to visible light. The tiny, makeshift muscle does some heavy lifting — relatively speaking.