Science & Technology

As a biology faculty member, Professor Emerita Ursula Goodenough invited non-science majors to understand and reflect on the history of life on Earth. The second edition of her book, The Sacred Depths of Nature: How Life Has Emerged and Evolved, brings the wondrous saga to a new audience.

The legacy of Train, a retriever who assisted in conservation research, continues with a new study and a statue in Argentina.

Ecologist Solny Adalsteinsson, at the Tyson Research Center, and virologist Jacco Boon, at the School of Medicine, are part of a One Health team studying how tick-borne Bourbon virus spreads through the environment, wildlife and people.

Washington University is leading a new effort to address the grand challenge of developing the next generation of high-performance, sustainably sourced and biodegradable plastics that advance engineering while also protecting the environment.

Faculty from Arts & Sciences, the McKelvey School of Engineering and the School of Medicine received seed grants and other funding from the Taylor Geospatial Institute totaling more than $950,000. The grants are designed to encourage collaborative research and provide resources to advance geospatial science through innovative projects.

Lee Sobotka, a professor of chemistry and of physics in Arts & Sciences, will moderate an April 26 technical forum to explain the science behind recent reports of radioactive substances at Jana Elementary school in Hazelwood, Mo. Saint Louis University’s College for Public Health and Social Justice is hosting the event.

Randall V. Martin, a world-renowned expert in atmospheric composition at the McKelvey School of Engineering, has been named the Raymond R. Tucker Distinguished Professor at Washington University in St. Louis. He was installed March 30 at a ceremony in Brauer Hall.

Mussels are the most imperiled freshwater animals in the United States. A short film documents a local mussels biodiversity project supported by the Living Earth Collaborative at Washington University in St. Louis.

Physicist Anders Carlsson in Arts & Sciences used 40 years of data from the St. Louis region to figure out the ideal mix of solar generation and storage for a reliable power grid.

Scientists at Tyson Research Center are carefully tracking the timing of salamander breeding as part of a larger research effort examining the impacts of climate change on amphibians and plants.