Science & Technology

A new study finds that Earth’s water may have come from materials that were present in the inner solar system at the time the planet formed — instead of that water being delivered by far-reaching comets or asteroids. The research co-authored by physicist Lionel Vacher in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis is published Aug. 28 in Science.

It is not easy to conduct human milk research during a pandemic. Yet despite the consistent lack of quality evidence for transmission of viral RNA from breast milk, some leaders are pushing ahead by altering public health and clinical practice guidance, according to E.A. Quinn, associate professor of biological anthropology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

Using properties of light from fluorescent probes is at the heart of a new imaging technique developed at Washington University’s McKelvey School of Engineering that allows for an unprecedented look inside cell membranes.

Carlos Botero, assistant professor of biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, finds that parasitic birds living in more variable and unpredictable habitats tend to hedge their bets by laying eggs in the nests of a greater variety and number of hosts. The study is published Aug. 21 in Nature Communications.

The McKelvey School of Engineering’s Shantanu Chakrabartty has recently been awarded a $380,000 NSF grant to address a persistent problem when it comes to recreating these neuronal networks in silicon: energy efficiency.

The behavior of electrons determines the fundamental properties of any material, such as its ability to conduct electricity. Erik Henriksen, assistant professor of physics in Arts & Sciences, takes advantage of strange-but-true qualities of graphene to search for correlated motion of electrons.

Writing in my bedroom office under a stay-at-home order, the coronavirus is reminding me and the world of our interconnectedness and our humanity. We as individuals and as communities—local, national and global—are asking ourselves: How are we adjusting to a new normal? How are we understanding each other and our needs, both individually and collectively?

Washington University in St. Louis recently was selected to receive an Environmental Protection Agency 2020 Pollution Prevention Award.

Research from the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis has determined that locusts can smell explosives and determine where the smells originated — an important step in engineering cyborg bomb-sniffing locusts.

The federal Office of Fossil Energy has granted researchers at the McKelvey School of Engineering nearly $7 million to refine a new power plant that’s suitable for fossil fuels and renewables — and will emit almost no carbon.