Science & Technology

Three WashU students have received the Barry Goldwater Scholarship, a prestigious award that honors students who conduct research in the natural sciences, mathematics and engineering. The winners, all juniors, are Makenna Fluegel, Aidan Li and Sean Wang.

Matthew Bersi, at the McKelvey School of Engineering, will use pioneering optics-based mechanical testing and imaging techniques to study the aorta with a five-year $575,000 CAREER award from the National Science Foundation.

The National Science Foundation has given a CAREER award to Nathaniel Huebsch, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis.

The undergraduate students in Washington University’s zymurgy class can learn about the practical application of synthetic biology through the traditional science of beer brewing.

In a first for the field, biomedical engineers at the McKelvey School of Engineering determined the pH profiles of certain key types of cellular condensates.

Researchers at the McKelvey School of Engineering received a three-year $570,746 grant from the National Science Foundation to support their work to understand the fundamental mechanisms that underpin interactions between nerve cells, or neurons, and nanoparticles, which can be used to both sense and stimulate neurons.

Kenneth Olsen, a George William and Irene Koechig Freiberg Professor of Biology in Arts & Sciences, joined researchers from 24 countries in an effort to strengthen cooperation and solve a key problem of improving rice yields.

When biologist Elizabeth Carlen in Arts & Sciences saw that squirrels were not being reported in north St. Louis, she wanted to know why. Her new paper in People & Nature illustrates how social and ecological factors can create bias in contributory science data.

Research from Washington University in St. Louis shows that orchids probably originated in Eurasia. Biologist Susanne Renner in Arts & Sciences is a senior author of the study in New Phytologist.

Rice feeds the world, but a look-alike weed can outcompete the crop. A study led by biologist Ken Olsen in Arts & Sciences shows how weedy rice gets its edge in tropical regions of the world.