Science & Technology

David Kilper/WUSTL PhotoComputer engineers at Washington University in St. Louis are bringing the minimalist approach to medical care and computing by coupling USB-based ultrasound probe technology with a smartphone, enabling a compact, mobile computational platform and a medical imaging device that fits in the palm of a hand. William D. Richard, Ph.D., associate professor of computer science and engineering, and David Zar, research associate in computer science and engineering, have made commercial USB ultrasound probes compatible with Microsoft Windows mobile-based smartphones, thanks to a $100,000 grant Microsoft awarded the two in 2008.

William (Will) G. Donnelly, son of Terrence and Ruth Donnelly of St. Louis, Mo. (63139), recently was named the inaugural recipient of the Boeing/FIRST Scholarship at Washington University. A senior at Gateway Institute of Technology in St. Louis, Donnelly will enter the university’s School of Engineering & Applied Science as a freshman when the fall semester begins in August 2009.

Photo by David KilperPutting a new spin on an old technique, Anne M. Hofmeister, Ph.D., research professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, has revolutionized scientists’ understanding of heat transport in the Earth’s crust, the outermost solid shell of our planet.

Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have figured out the orientation of a protein in the antenna complex to its neighboring membrane in a photosynthetic bacterium, a key find in the process of energy transfer in photosynthesis. Robert Blankenship, Ph.D., Markey Distinguished Professor of Biology and Chemistry in Arts & Sciences, led a team that for the first time combined chemical labeling with mass spectroscopy to verify the orientation. The team also included Michael Gross, Ph.D., WUSTL Professor of Chemistry, Immunology and Medicine, and Chemistry graduate students Jianzhong Wen and Hao Zhang. A paper describing this work appeared recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA.

When Earth Day was first celebrated in 1970, calls for “corporate social responsibility” and environmentally friendly policies fell mostly on deaf ears in the business world. Today, the green movement has moved from the fringes to the mainstream of society and to prove that point, the Olin Business School chapter of Net Impact is hosting an event, April 23, featuring major corporate executives charged with promoting corporate responsibility and sustainability.

P. James E. Peebles, Ph.D., one of the world’s foremost theoretical cosmologists who played a central role in understanding the evolution and structure of the universe, will deliver two talks April 15 and 16 as part of the McDonnell Distinguished Lecture Series, sponsored by the University’s McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences.

PeeblesP. James E. Peebles, Ph.D., one of the world’s foremost theoretical cosmologists who played a central role in understanding the evolution and structure of the universe, will deliver two talks April 15-16 as part of the McDonnell Distinguished Lecture Series, sponsored by Washington University’s McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences.

David Kilper/WUSTL Photo ServicesPutting a new spin on an old technique, Anne M. Hofmeister, Ph.D., research professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has revolutionized scientists’ understanding of heat transport in the Earth’s crust, the outermost solid shell of our planet.

Funding from the Missouri Life Sciences Research Fund, part of the 1998 state tobacco settlement, will establish the St. Louis Institute of Nanomedicine Working Group, a collaborative regional effort to apply advances in nanotechnology to the treatment of human diseases.

AgarwalA mechanical engineer at Washington University in St. Louis is developing techniques that will lessen our monetary pain at the pump by reducing the drag of vehicles — planes, autos and trucks. Drag is an aerodynamic force that is the result of resistance a body encounters when it moves in a liquid or gaseous medium (such as air). Reduction in drag means less fuel would be required to overcome the fluid resistance encountered by the moving vehicle. Working with undergraduate and graduate students, Ramesh K. Agarwal, Ph.D, the William Palm Professor of Engineering at WUSTL, has successfully demonstrated that the drag of airplane wings and cars/trucks can be reduced by employing the active flow control technology.