Science & Technology

Like our eyes, microscopes are limited in what they can see because of their resolution, or their ability to see detail. An engineer at Washington University in St. Louis plan to use funding from the National Science Center to build a more precise microscope.

Thirty years ago this month, the term global warming became part of our popular conversation. Doctoral candidate Andrea Godshalk from the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts reflects on the recent Saint Louis Climate Summit and the challenge of re-imagining key infrastructure, systems and values.

The findings, reported in the journal Science, contain positive implications for the survival of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which scientists had previously thought could be doomed because of the effects of climate change, according to study co-author Douglas Wiens of Arts & Sciences.

The Curiosity Rover mission found signs of organic materials on Mars dating back about 3.5 billion years, NASA announced June 7. It could be a big deal, said Raymond Arvidson, the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor in Arts & Sciences.

Engineers at Washington University in St. Louis have developed tools that mathematically describe the kinetics in a system right before it dissolves into randomness.

So what does the future have in store for us in regard to energy resources, consumption and technology? Aaron Bobick, dean of the School of Engineering & Applied Science, breaks down the issue in his blog, “The Observational Engineer.”

Using a new approach, researchers from Colorado State University and Washington University have uncovered evidence that underscores one long-debated theory about the origins of agriculture.

In a new paper in the journal Physical Review Letters, Bhupal Dev, assistant professor of Physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, describes how future accelerators could crash together charged particles in a new way to shed light on their behavior.

Natural selection acts on behavioral traits, says evolutionary biologist Jonathan Losos, who helped lead a replicated field experiment with anole lizards on eight small islands in the Caribbean, as reported in the June 1 issue of Science

Want to improve your attention? Arts & Sciences brain sciences researcher Richard Abrams at Washington University in St. Louis finds that our attention may be guided by the most recent interactions with our environment.