Social distancing and COVID-19: A law of diminishing returns
Modeling from the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis shows how social distancing could have better been implemented. The key? Longer periods of distancing would have helped — but only to a point. More needed to be done.
Researchers focused on understanding virus transmission by aerosols
Nearly 240 scientists signed onto a letter urging the World Health Organization to recognize the airborne spread of COVID-19. Here’s what a signatory from Washington University in St. Louis has to say.
The Sirens of Mars
Searching for life on another world
Empathetic and evocative, The Sirens of Mars offers an unlikely natural history of a place where no human has ever set foot, while providing a vivid portrait of our quest to defy our isolation in the cosmos.
An emerging understanding of smell
Engineers at Washington University in St. Louis have found that a neural model based on the act of a bug smelling something showed emergent properties, properties similar to those seen in an insect’s antennal lobe, an important area for its sense of smell.
Artificial intelligence identifies, locates seizures in real-time
Research from the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis has shown that understanding brain activity as a network instead of readings from an EEG allow for more accurate and efficient detection of seizures in real-time.
Mapping pollution across the globe
Using recent satellite observations, ground monitoring and computational modeling, researchers at the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis have released a survey of global pollution rates. There are a couple of surprises, for worse, but also, for better.
Engineers develop new fuel cells with twice the operating voltage as hydrogen fuel cells
Engineers at the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis have developed high-power, direct borohydride fuel cells that operate at double the voltage of conventional hydrogen fuel cells.
Electrically charged dust storms drive Martian chlorine cycle
New research from Washington University in St. Louis planetary scientists shows that Martian dust storms, like the one that eventually shut down the Opportunity rover, drive the cycle of chlorine from surface to atmosphere and may shed light on the potential for finding life on Mars.
Soaring into history
On May 30, 2020, WashU alumnus Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley became the first astronauts in NASA’s history to launch from a commercially built and operated spacecraft, the SpaceX Crew Dragon. For the Demo-2 mission, the two are testing the spacecraft’s transportation system for future missions.
Cutting-edge computing paves way to future of NMR spectroscopy
New collaborative research from the Department of Chemistry at Washington University in St. Louis, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, leveraged quantum chemistry approaches to develop additional data infrastructure for an isotope of silicon, 29Si.
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