Science & Technology

Each fall, the leaves of almost half of North America’s species of trees and shrubs turn red. Biologist Susanne S. Renner at Washington University in St. Louis helps explain why the North American fall is so red, compared with Europe, and also what changes to fall foliage we can expect under climate change.

A team led by biologist Arpita Bose in Arts & Sciences modified a microbe so that it can produce a biofuel using only carbon dioxide, solar panel-generated electricity and light.

Saying goodbye to daylight saving time, and the summertime memories we associate with it, can be difficult. But experts in biological rhythms, including Erik Herzog in Arts & Sciences, agree that it’s time to let it go.

Using a novel technology, the lab of Michael Vahey at the McKelvey School of Engineering uncovered shape-shifting properties of a common respiratory virus.

Ryan Calcutt and Ram Dixit in Arts & Sciences and their collaborators created the first artificial scaffolds that can support the growth of individual plant cells — a discovery that will make it possible to study how forces such as gravity affect the way that plant cells form and grow.

In her book, Lessons from Plants, Beronda Montgomery, AB ’94, explains what plants can teach us about the world and about ourselves.

Islands are hot spots of evolutionary adaptation that can also advantage species returning to the mainland, according to a study led by biologist Jonathan Losos in Arts & Sciences, published the week of Oct. 11 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

New research from the laboratory of Jonathan Losos begins to unravel one of the major mysteries of invasion biology: why animals that tend not to hybridize in their native range abandon their inhibitions when they spread into a new land. The study is published the week of Oct. 11 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Neuroscientists in Arts & Sciences discovered that the daily release of hormones depends on the coordinated activity of clocks in two parts of the brain, a finding that could have implications for human diseases.

Sarah Anderson, a postdoctoral research associate in biology in Arts & Sciences, won the Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a three-year fellowship valued at about $200,000.