Three questions with Dean Barbara Schaal on why science matters
As past president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world’s largest general scientific society, Schaal often advocates for scientific funding. Here, she explains why science is a good investment.
Herby goes to China
Five students from WashU’s school of Engineering & Applied Science put their technical chops to the test in China this summer when they competed in the Silk Road Robotics competition.
Reaching for neutron stars
A cross-disciplinary team from chemistry and physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis has discovered both a framework to predict where neutrons will inhabit a nucleus and a way to predict the skin thickness of a nucleus.
New pathways, better biofuels
New research from an engineer at Washington University in St. Louis stitches together the best bits of several different bacteria–including a virulent pathogen–to synthesize a new biofuel product.
Oxygen levels link to ancient explosion of life
A team of researchers, including a faculty member and postdoctoral fellow from Washington University, found that oxygen levels appear to increase at about the same time as a three-fold increase in biodiversity during the Ordovician Period, between 445 and 485 million years ago, according to a study published Nov. 20 in Nature Geoscience.
Water world
Three Washington University in St. Louis scientists studied the great granddaddy of all photosynthetic organisms — a strain of cyanobacteria — to develop the first experimental map of that organism’s water world.
WashU Expert: Energy alliances must be holistic, realistic
In reaction to multiple countries — including Canada, the United Kingdom, France and Italy — announcing at the United Nations climate talks that they’re unifying to phase out coal-generated power by 2030, an environmental engineer at Washington University in St. Louis warned that a “mix of energy sources” is vital for the near future.
How barley reached China: A story of food globalization
First domesticated 10,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East, wheat and barley took vastly different routes to China, with barley switching from a winter to both winter and summer crop during a thousand-year detour along the southern Tibetan Plateau, suggests new research from Washington University in St. Louis.
Research team developing new pediatric neuroimaging technology
A team of scientists at Washington University in St. Louis is developing a new way to look inside the brains of the littlest patients — a technique that will provide precise measurements without requiring children to stay perfectly still or the use of ionizing radiation.
Pushing the imaging envelope
An engineer at Washington University in St. Louis plans to push the envelope of microscopic imaging, to better visualize the molecules involved in Alzheimer’s disease.
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