Science & Technology

Xinyi Liu Barley harvest in Zuoni County, Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. An archaeology dig on the “roof of the world” has yielded evidence that humans figured out much earlier than previously known how to survive year-round in farming and grazing settlements in extreme high-altitude regions of the Tibetan Plateau, finds research released Nov. 20 in […]

Three faculty members at Washington University in St. Louis have been named fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest general scientific society. They are Mary C. Dinauer, MD, PhD, David M. Holtzman, MD, and Robert G. Kranz, PhD.

New research by Ting Wang, PhD, (left) and graduate student Vasavi Sundaram has uncovered some striking differences in the genomes of humans and mice that can help scientists determine when a mouse may be a good stand-in to study human biology and disease.

Scientists have mostly ignored mRNA, the molecule that ferries information from DNA to the cellular machines that make proteins, because these DNA transcripts are ephemeral and soon destroyed. But mRNA can be just as important as DNA scientists at Washington University in St. Louis say. They found that oxidized messenger RNA jams the cellular machines that make protein. The failure to clear the jams and chew up bad messengers is associated with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

Washington University in St. Louis has been awarded a grant from the Amgen Foundation that will provide hands-on laboratory experience to undergraduate students through the Amgen Scholars Program. This marks the fifth year that Washington University is participating in the program.

​Ten finalists in the 2014 Olin Cup Competition​ are offering novel solutions to real-world challenges and will vie for $70,000 in seed money to start a new company. The Olin Cup is sponsored by the Skandalaris Center for Interdisciplinary Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Washington University in St. Louis.

Washington University’s Bear Cub grant program helps researchers make the leap from bench scientists to budding entrepreneurs. The application deadline is Nov. 30.

This August, a consortium of 65 scientists announced in the journal Science that they have so far found seven probable but not confirmed interstellar dust specks in a collector returned to Earth by the Stardust spacecraft in 2006. Undergraduate students at Washington University in St. Louis found three of the seven specks of dust.

Representatives and leadership from Washington University and the 28 McDonnell International Scholars Academy institutions came together with policymakers, researchers, students and corporate partners for the recent Fifth International Symposium on “The Role of Research Universities in Addressing Global Challenges.” The symposium, sponsored by the McDonnell Academy, focused on how interdisciplinary research and education collaboration can lead to innovative solutions for the world’s most pressing problems

​Overwhelmed by speculators trying to cash-in on a prized medicinal fungus known as Himalayan Viagra, two isolated Tibetan communities have managed to do at the local level what world leaders often fail to do on a global scale — implement a successful system for the sustainable harvest of a precious natural resource, suggests new research from Washington University in St. Louis.​