Science & Technology

A low-cost medical device targeted at improving world health has taken home the top prize in Washington University School of Engineering & Applied Science’s inaugural Discovery Competition. Sparo Labs took the largest prize of $25,000. The company’s plan stems from an award-winning project to develop a low-cost, pocket-sized spirometer, which measures lung function.

Chenyang Lu, PhD, professor of computer science & engineering in the School of Engineering & Applied Science, and colleagues, have developed a unique system they call a Wireless Cyber-Physical Simulator, which can help bridges and other structures survive natural disasters.

Members of the WU Racing Team revealed the 2013 race car April 25 in the Danforth University Center. The team and car will travel to Michigan International Speedway next month to participate in the Formula Society of Automotive Engineers competition.

This year the Spector Prize has been awarded to two students, Megan Kelly and Jennifer Stevens.The prize, given by the Department of Biology in memory of a 1938 WUSTL graduate, recognizes outstanding undergraduate achievement in research. Kelly did research on the chemical signals used by malaria parasites and Stevens on evolutionary trade-offs in weakly electric fish.

Scientists working at Washington University in St. Louis have discovered two tiny grains of silica (SiO2; the most common constituent of sand) in meteorites that fell to earth in Antarctica. Because of their isotopic composition these two grains are thought to be pure samples from a massive star that exploded before the birth of the solar system, perhaps the supernova whose explosion is thought to have triggered the collapse of a giant molecular cloud, giving birth to the Sun.

Eleven Washington University research teams will share $2.7 million in new grants from the Children’s Discovery Institute, a research collaboration between St. Louis Children’s Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine.

Lindsey Steinberg has been selected to receive the 2013 Sowden Prize, given each year by the Department of Chemistry in Arts & Sciences. The prize, named in honor of the late John C. Sowden, a professor of chemistry  and a successful carbohydrate chemist, is the highest honor the Chemistry Department bestows on a graduating senior chemistry major.

Discovering ways to honor the dignity of individuals coping with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias is the goal of an interdisciplinary symposium on “Finding Humanity in Advanced Dementia” to be held in Wilson Hall on the Danforth Campus of Washington University in St Louis on Saturday, April 27.

Lisa Alvarez-Cohen, PhD, a professor of environmental engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, will give the Ninth Annual Ryckman Lecture at 1:30 p.m. Friday, April 19. Alvarez-Cohen, the Fred and Claire Sauer Professor and past chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley, will speak on “From Individuals to Community: […]

The Society of Experimental Psychologists (SEP) has awarded its 2013 Norman Anderson Lifetime Achievement Award to Larry L. Jacoby, PhD, an internationally recognized scholar of human memory and a professor of psychology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.