Science & Technology

Michael Wysession, professor in earth and planetary sciences, and Bryn Lutes, a lecturer in chemistry, both in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, believe that high school students will learn chemistry better when they crunch actual climate data, rather than memorize the periodic table by rote. They helped write a national chemistry curriculum that is loaded with real-world examples — like ocean acidification — and is already being rolled out by school districts in Los Angeles and other parts of California.

Keith Hengen, assistant professor of biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, received a three-year $1.8 million grant to study the role of sleep and waking behavior in shaping the brain’s neural dynamics. His research will help scientists understand how sleep contributes to healthy cognition and shed light on the mechanisms by which disrupted sleep worsens neurodegenerative and mental health disorders.

Brendan Juba at the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis will take a close look at relationships and generalization in artificial intelligence with a National Science Foundation CAREER award.

A team of engineers and computer scientists at the McKelvey School of Engineering, along with multi-disciplinary collaborators at other institutions, will work over the next two years to prepare a proposal for one of the National Science Foundation’s National Artificial Intelligence (AI) Research Institutes.

One locust is harmless, a swarm can be devastating. A new multi-institutional, multi-disciplinary project involving a researcher at Washington University in St. Louis aims to understand how swarms arise — and how to combat them.

Deprived of light, plants are unable to transform carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into sugar molecules. New research led by biologist Richard Vierstra in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis provides an in-depth look at how maize responds at a cellular level.

Research from the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis shows prenatal cannabis exposure may impact child behavior later in life.

A new study involving Washington University in St. Louis researchers finds consumers across the United States and in some European countries are ready to start paying for climate action now.

Lithium ion batteries that shouldn’t short circuit often do. Now researchers at the McKelvey School of Engineering have figured out why, and they have devised a straightforward way to tell if and when that will happen for individual batteries.