Science & Technology

The popular Saturday Science seminar series celebrates its 20th year by tackling on paradoxes, those fascinating little conundrums that are sometimes just words colliding but other times are cracks in our understanding of the world that, when prised open, give access to a much deeper understanding. The first lecture is Saturday, April 6. ​

Lihong Wang, PhD, the Gene K. Beare Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, has received a three-year, $300,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to study oxygen consumption rates of individual cells using photoacoustic microscopy, a novel imaging technology he developed that uses light and sound to measure change.

Caitlin Kelleher, PhD, has received a prestigious research fellowship from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Kelleher is the Hugo F. & Ina Champ Urbauer Career Development Assistant Professor in the School of Engineering & Applied Science at Washington University in St. Louis. The two-year, $50,000 fellowship supports early-career scientists and scholars in science, mathematics, economics and computer science. Fellows may use the funds for equipment, technical assistance, professional travel or trainee support.

Buried for 100,000 years at Xujiayao in the Nihewan Basin of northern China, the recovered skull pieces of an early human exhibit a now-rare congenital deformation that indicates inbreeding might well have been common among our ancestors, new research from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Washington University in St. Louis suggests.​

For his undergraduate thesis project, senior Thomas Muschninski working with professor of physics Jonathan Katz published an article in Nature Climate Change showing that the signature of an increase in storminess could be extracted from precipitation data for the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. The scientists suspect the same signature lies hidden under naturally stormier weather at other locations as well.

Two biologists at Washington University in St. Louis were delighted to discover a meticulous dataset on a plant-pollinator network recorded by Illinois naturalist Charles Robertson between 1884 and 1916. Re-collecting part of Robertson’s network, they learned that although the network has compensated for some losses, battered by climate change and habitat loss it is now weaker and less resilient than in Robertson’s time.

Many WUSTL students will be on hand at the St. Louis Science Center this Saturday from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. to explain the brain and their brain research to interested visitors. They are participants in NeuroDay, a free brain science expo featuring hands-on activities and demonstrations that provide a rare opportunity to learn about the human brain, the nervous system, neurological disorders and cutting-edge brain research.

A large team of scientists has decoded the genome of a sea lamprey – one of the few ancient, jawless species of vertebrates that has survived through the modern era.

The MySci Resource Center, the new hub of the Institute for School Partnership in University City, Mo., launched Feb. 18 to great fanfare. Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton, a chemist by training, donned goggles and a lab coat to demonstrate to student visitors how much fun science can be. Video highlights of “Magic” Mark Wrighton are included.

WUSTL engineering researchers have received a five-year, $2.25 million grant to better understand traumatic brain injuries in efforts to improve methods for prevention and treatment.