Science & Technology

People rarely have just one motivation to do something. New research from the lab of Todd Braver at Washington University in St. Louis suggests how, and where, they combine.

Some plants like ginkgo trees have either male or female flowers, not both. Susanne Renner, honorary professor of biology in Arts & Sciences, reviewed the genetic basis of sex determination in plants for Nature Plants and will guest-edit a special issue of a Royal Society journal on the topic.

Municipalities such as University City play a vital role in protecting the planet, and Washington University students are working hard to help the city meet its sustainability goals.

Three researchers at Washington University School of Medicine have been elected to the American Academy of Microbiology in recognition of their scientific achievements and original contributions that have advanced the field of microbiology.

Sometimes overshadowed by neighboring Amazon forests, the forests of the Andes Mountains are helping to protect the planet by acting as a carbon sink, absorbing carbon dioxide and keeping some of this climate-altering gas out of circulation, according to biologists in Arts & Sciences and their partners from a Living Earth Collaborative working group.

A team of researchers at Washington University is developing devices to detect the virus that causes COVID-19 in the air.

Macy Sprunger, a graduate student in Meredith Jackrel’s lab in the Department of Chemistry in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, won a three-year $136,560 National Research Service Award from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Such fellowships support predoctoral students conducting research in scientific health-related fields.

Michael Nowak, research professor of physics in Arts & Sciences, is co-author of a study in The Astrophysical Journal Letters that shares unprecedented observations of the black hole in the galaxy M87.

John E. McCarthy, the Spencer T. Olin Professor of Mathematics and chair of mathematics and statistics in Arts & Sciences, received a five-year $450,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to develop new tools to deal with complexity in the design of systems such as those used in automatic pilots and self-driving cars.

Abhinav Jha, assistant professor at the McKelvey School of Engineering, has received a four-year $1.83 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He will develop a new framework to evaluate quantitative imaging methods and help doctors make better decisions.