Science & Technology

An investigation by an international consortium of scientists, including an anthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis, has discovered the origin of the world’s deadliest form of human malaria, Plasmodium falciparum.

Jose Mestre, PhD, a distinguished scholar of physics learning and a highly regarded researcher in physics education, will deliver a talk titled “Physics Learning and Classroom Practice: Clinical and Classroom-Based Studies of Physics Cognition” on Wednesday, Sept. 29, at Washington University in St. Louis. The talk will take place at 4 p.m. in Crow Hall, Room 201.

Washington University Frontiers in Technology and Science, a one-day conference modeled on the Kavli Frontiers of Science conference, hopes to connect WUSTL faculty in the sciences, engineering or mathematics and spur cross-disciplinary collaborations. The conference will be held from 10:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 25, in Cupples I, Room 199.

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon leaves Washington University’s Brauer Hall with his wife, Georganne Wheeler Nixon, Friday, Sept. 17, after outlining his vision for Missouri’s energy future before a group of CEOs and other leaders of major energy producers and industrial and commercial energy consumers at the “Energy Policy Discussion.” The meeting was co-sponsored by the Missouri Chamber of Commerce and the School of Engineering & Applied Science.

This fall, the Department of Computer Science & Engineering  in the School of Engineering & Applied Science at Washington University in St. Louis is holding a five-part lecture series on cyber-physical systems, a topic increasingly recognized as key to the future competitiveness of U.S. industry. The first talk will be Friday, Sept. 24.

University College, the continuing education and professional studies division in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, will host a symposium titled “The Sustainability Challenge: Local to Global” at 7 p.m. Oct. 26 in Steinberg Auditorium. The symposium will feature experts from Washington University and the greater St. Louis region as they discuss questions and challenges facing the environment, community development and organizational life.

Students with good ideas for saving energy have until Sept.r 19 to shoot a three-minute video promoting their idea and to post the video on a contest site. The prize for winning is $5000 and travel assistance to St. Louis for the Global Energy Future Symposium in early October.

Christopher Field, PhD, one of the leaders of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will be on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis as an I-CARES Distinguished Speaker at 5 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 21, in Graham Chapel. Field and a team of scientists have calculated how fast temperature zones are likely to move across the planet in the future and whether plants and animals will be able to migrate fast enough to stay ahead of the heat.

In a scientific study of secondhand smoke exposure in St. Louis bars and restaurants, researchers at Washington University in St. Louis found that ventilation systems and “voluntary” smoke-free policies do not protect employees and customers from exposure to nicotine in the air.

The warming that following the last Ice Age was interrupted by a cold snap that killed off megafauna such as the giant ground sloth and the wooly mammoth. Could this crisis have been caused by an asteroid impact or a comet breaking up in the atmosphere? Unfortunately the geological evidence for such a dramatic event has not stood up to scrutiny. In PNAS a group of scientists challenges the catastrophists last, best hope: shock-synthesized nanodiamonds.