Science & Technology

In mid-summer two lucky Washington University in St. Louis graduate students got to travel to Lake Constance in Germany to listen in the morning to Nobel laureates lecture on the topics of their choice and quiz them in afternoon about life in science and what it is really like.

Genetic investigators, include Fiona Marshall, PhD, professor of anthropology in Arts & Sciences, say that the partnership between people and the ancestors of today’s donkeys was sealed not by monarchs trying to establish kingdoms, but by mobile, pastoral people who had to recruit animals to help them survive the harsh Saharan landscape in northern Africa more than 5,000 years ago.

Two scientists at Washington University in St. Louis are able to image subcutaneous melanoma tumors with startling clarity. Their imaging technique relies on sound rather than light because sound is less strongly scattered by tissues. In addition, the tumors are preloaded with a nanoparticle contrast agent that latches onto proteins that stud the surface of the cancerous cells.

Pass the chips and hand over the remote. In a study involving the first-ever daily energy expenditure measurements in apes, a researcher from Washington University in St. Louis and his team have determined that orangutans living in a large indoor/outdoor habitat used less energy, relative to body mass, than nearly any eutherian mammal ever measured, including sedentary humans.

John C. Georgian, who taught mechanical engineering at Washington University in St. Louis for 60 years, died Tuesday, July 6, 2010, in St. Louis after a brief illness. He was 97.

A comprehensive study by an intellectual property law expert published in the journal Science may guide global climate change and other scientific policy-makers in developing rules for research data release. 

Many food plants contain cyanogenic glycosides that can release cyanide when the food is eaten. What’s more, a greater proportion of food plants than plants in general are cyanogenic. WUSTL researcher Kenneth M. Olsen, PhD, offers an explanation of this toxic puzzle.

Occupational therapy students learn the powerful effect of alcohol on an egg to demonstrate fetal alcohol spectrum disorder.

Scientists have sequenced the genome of the colonial alga, Volvox carteri, the journal Science announced. While the photosynthesizing colonial algae is fascinating in itself, knowing its genome may also help scientists engineer algae able to produce economic biofuels.

Former astronaut and camp founder Bernard A. Harris Jr., MD, visits the ExxonMobil Bernard Harris Summer Science Camp held at Washington University June 20-July 2. Harris helped the 44 middle school campers from St. Louis-area schools with a hands-on engineering challenge. The free residential camp gives students the opportunity to get ahead in math and science, meet inspiring role models and experience college life.