Science & Technology

The Supreme Court’s unanimous opinion in Bowman v. Monsanto holds that farmers who lawfully obtain Monsanto’s patented, genetically modified soybeans do not have a right to plant those soybeans and grow a new crop of soybeans without Monsanto’s permission. “The Court closed a potential loophole in Monsanto’s long-standing business model, prevents Monsanto’s customers from setting up ‘farm-factories’ for producing soybeans that could be sold in competition with Monsanto’s soybeans, and it enables Monsanto to continue to earn a reasonable profit on its patented technology,” says Kevin Collins, JD, patent law expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis

High school students competed at the annual Boeing Engineering Challenge at the WU Field House May 3. About 100 area high school students from six school districts on 25 teams visited the WUSTL campus to take part in the Boeing Challenge. The teams competed to determine which glider had the farthest flight, straightest path, longest hang time or highest quality of flight. Pictured are Eureka High School students who built a glider.

Many medical conditions destroy nerve axons, the long wires that transmit signals to other parts of the body. Now, researchers have found a way the body can remove injured axons, identifying a potential target for new drugs that could prevent the inappropriate loss of axons and maintain nerve function.

Memory problems related to day-to-day activities — one of the largest complaints of people with Alzheimer’s diease — may be due to older adults’ inability to segment their daily lives into discrete experiences, suggests new psychology research from Washington University in St. Louis. How we perceive events in our current lives influences how we remember them in the future, the study finds.

The Next Generation Science Standards have been out for a month now. How are they being received? Michael Wysession, who helped lead the effort to define the national standards, says there haven’t been any major surprises, in part because there is strong economic motivation to bring American students up to the level of the scientifically literate students they will be compete with in the international job marker.

Three Washington University in St. Louis scientists are among the 84 members and 21 foreign associates elected to the National Academy of Sciences this year. Election to the academy is considered one of the highest honors that can be accorded a U.S. scientist or engineer.

School of Medicine faculty member Elliot L. Elson, PhD, has been elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The organization was formed in 1780 to cultivate the arts and sciences and to recognize individuals who have made prominent contributions to their disciplines and to society.

John Exton, MD, PhD, the author of “Crucible of Science” — a book about the history of a unique laboratory at Washington University and of Carl and Gerty Cori, the biochemists who established it — will make opening remarks at the Carl and Gerty Cori Lecture on May 8.

Paul Shaw, PhD, a researcher at the School of Medicine, has used what he learns in fruit flies to look for markers of sleep loss in humans. But now he has reversed the process in a new paper, taking what he finds in humans back to the flies and identifying a human gene that is more active after sleep deprivation.

A consortium of researchers led by the School of Medicine has identified virtually all of the major mutations that drive acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a fast-growing blood cancer in adults that often is difficult to treat. The dark lines in the image pictured show all of the major mutations for AML that occurred in one patient with the disease.