Science & Technology

The often-maligned E. coli bacteria has powerhouse potential: in the lab, it has the ability to crank out fuels, pharmaceuticals and other useful products at a rapid rate. A team from the School of Engineering & Applied Science at Washington University in St. Louis has discovered a new way to remove a major stumbling block in the process, and boost biofuel production from E. coli.

Autophagy (self eating) has long been considered a kind of indiscriminate Pac Man-like process of waste disposal. Now, scientists at Washington University have shown that apart from conditions of cell starvation, it is carefully regulated: both in plants and yeast — and most likely in people. The finding is relevant to aggregation-prone pathologies such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases.

A team of engineers at Washington University in St. Louis has found a way to use graphene oxide sheets to transform dirty water into drinking water, and it could be a global game-changer.

Washington University geologists are helping to map the extensive cave that underlies a “sinkhole plain” in nearby southern Illinois.

The National Science Foundation, along with the Water Research Foundation, has awarded a pair of Washington University in St. Louis researchers $229,000 in grants to study ways to best control lead pipe corrosion, which can poison drinking water. Daniel Giammar, the Walter E. Browne Professor of Environmental Engineering in the School of Engineering & Applied […]

New research from Washington University in St. Louis is adding a twist to the science of revenge, showing that our love-hate relationship with this dark desire is indeed a mixed bag, making us feel both good and bad, for reasons we might not expect.

Using a locust’s sense of smell, a team of engineers from Washington University in St. Louis is developing new biorobotic sensing systems that could be used in homeland security applications, including bomb and chemical detection.

Numerical models show hot, rocky exoplanets can change their chemistry by vaporizing rock-forming elements in steam atmospheres that are then partially lost to space.

Scientists at Washington University in St. Louis have discovered a previously unknown strategy photosynthetic organisms use to protect themselves from the dangers of excessive light, providing further insight into photosynthesis and opening up new avenues for engineering this process, which underlies the global food chain.

Researchers in the School of Engineering & Applied Science have found a way to give photons, or light packets, their marching orders. The researchers have capitalized on the largesse of an energy state in an optical field to make photons in their lasing system travel in a consistent mode, either clockwise or counterclockwise.