Science & Technology

Analysis of new images of a curious “hot spot” on the far side of the Moon reveal it to be a small volcanic province created by the upwelling of silicic magma. The unusual location of the province and of the surprising composition of the lava that formed it offer tantalizing clues to the Moon’s thermal history. The discovery has just been published in Nature Geoscience.

Inherited forms of Alzheimer’s disease may be detectable as many as 20 years before problems with memory and thinking develop, scientists reported July 20 at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease in Paris.

Some 75 K-12 educators from across St. Louis attended a one-day conference June 17 in WUSTL’s Whitaker Hall to explore using LEGOs to engage their students in learning science, technology, engineering and math. The teachers built and programmed robots using LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT software.

Washington University’s Department of Genetics has established the Genome Technology Access Center to offer high-speed genome sequencing and other advanced genetic technologies to scientists both within and beyond the university.  

A ring-shaped laser no bigger than a pinprick can accurately detect and count individual viruses, the particles that jumpstart cloud formation or those that contaminate the air we breathe. A particle disturbs the light circulating in the ring, splitting the lasing frequency. This split is a measure of the particle’s size.

DNA analysis of more than 1300 coconuts from around the world reveals that the coconut was brought under cultivation in two separate locations, one in the Pacific basin and the other in the Indian Ocean basin. What’s more, coconut genetics also preserve a record of prehistoric trade routes and of the colonization of the Americas.

Picture a menacing drill sergeant, a gory slaughterhouse, a devastating scene of a natural disaster. Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have found that viewing such emotion-laden images immediately after taking a test actually enhances people’s retention of the tested material.

Educators from across St. Louis will build and test robots using LEGOs as they explore teaching science, technology, engineering and math in grades K-12. They will share strategies for using the LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT, which can turn the building toys into programmable robots, during an all-day conference Friday, June 17, at Washington University’s Whitaker Hall. 

A team of scientists from Washington University in St. Louis and Monsanto, a St. Louis-based company that makes the glyphosate-based Roundup herbicides, were able to follow molecules of the herbicide as they entered a resistant weed and to discover exactly how the plant disarms it. In a second paper they describe a herbicide application technique that can be used to outfox the resistance mechanism they had discovered.

Kevin Moeller, PhD, professor of chemistry in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, is working to find ways to use clean energy in clean chemistry. “We can make the oxidation reactions used in the synthesis of organic molecules cleaner by hitching photovoltaics to electrochemistry,” Moeller says. It’s not a new idea, but one Moeller and his colleagues hope catches on.