Science & Technology

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.

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.

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.

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.

New research from Washington University in St. Louis offers clues about how mechanosensitive ion channels in the plant’s cells respond to swelling by inducing cell death — potentially to protect the rest of the plant.  

Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis are the first to study presolar materials that landed on a planet-like body. Their findings may help solve the mystery: where did all the water on Earth come from?

A new technique developed in the lab of Matthew Lew at the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis measures the orientation of single molecules. It is enabling, for the first time, optical microscopy to reveal nanoscale details about the structures of these problematic proteins.

“This new study shows that the extinction crisis is even worse than realized,” said Jonathan Losos, the William H. Danforth Distinguished University Professor and professor of biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis and director of the Living Earth Collaborative.

Research from the McKelvey School of Engineering shows that energy constraints on a system, coupled with an intrinsic property of systems, push silicon neurons to create a dynamic, at-a-distance communication that is more robust and efficient than traditional computer processors. And it may teach us something about biological brains.

The Dixit lab at Washington University in St. Louis, which in a study published in 2018 found molecular brakemen that keep the Arabidopsis Fragile Fiber 1 (FRA1) motor protein in check, uncovered in continuing research that FRA1 cinches its track in place through cellulose synthase-microtubule uncoupling proteins.