Science & Technology

A new, more robust analysis of recently derived human gene trees by Alan R. Templeton, Ph.D, of Washington University in St Louis, shows three distinct major waves of human migration out of Africa instead of just two, and statistically refutes — strongly — the ‘Out of Africa’ replacement theory. That theory holds that populations of Homo sapiens left Africa 100,000 years ago and wiped out existing populations of humans. Templeton has shown that the African populations interbred with the Eurasian populations — thus making love, not war.

Good pollinators wantedMother Nature could use a few more good pollinators, especially in species-rich biodiversity hotspots, according to a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS online, Jan. 16, 2006). Jana Vamosi, Ph.D, postdoctoral associate at the University of Calgary and Tiffany Knight, Ph.D., assistant professor of biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, and their collaborators have performed an exhaustive global analysis of more than 1,000 pollination studies which included 166 different plant species and found that, in areas where there is a great deal of plant diversity, plants suffer lower pollination and reproductive success. For some plant species, this reduction in fruit and seed production could push them towards extinction.

Steven Squyres shares his passion for space exploration on Feb. 8 at the Assembly Series. He is the scientific principal investigator for NASA’s Mars Exploration Rovers Project. The robotic explorers will examine Mars’ rocks and soil for minerals signaling the past presence of water, and help astronomers determine whether or not there was life on the planet.

TrinkausTwo Neandertal fossils excavated from Vindija Cave in Croatia in 1998, believed to be the last surviving Neandertals, may be 3,000-4,000 years older than originally thought. An international team of researchers, including Erik Trinkaus, Ph.D., the Mary Tileston Hemenway Professor of anthropology in Arts & Sciences, has redated the two Neandertals from Vindija Cave, the results of which have been published in the Jan. 2-6 early edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

WillClifford M. Will, Ph.D., has been named the James S. McDonnell Professor of Physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, announced Edward S. Macias, Ph.D., executive vice chancellor, dean of Arts & Sciences and the Barbara and David Thomas Distinguished Professor in Arts & Sciences. Will is known worldwide as one of the leading experts in using experimental and observational data to explain Einstein’s general theory of relativity.

Mechanical engineers at Washington University in St. Louis and their collaborators have devised a technique on humans that for the first time shows just what the brain does when the skull accelerates. What they’ve done is use a technique originally developed to measure cardiac deformation to image deformation in human subjects during repeated mild head decelerations.

Josh Smith in the Libyan desert.They’re back! Joshua Smith, Ph.D., assistant professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, and D. Tab Rasmussen, Ph.D., professor of anthropology, both in Arts & Sciences, are stateside, teaching at Washington University after returning from what is thought to be the first-ever collaborative paleontological expedition between American and Libyan scientists. Smith and Rasmussen were in Libya for just three weeks in August of 2005. They were in the field for only 10 days, and they and their colleagues visited 13 new places that have produced Cretaceous-aged vertebrate fossils. They found fossils of sharks, bony fish, crocodiles and turtles.

ComptonPhysicist Arthur Holly Compton, Ph.D., Washington University’s first faculty member to receive a Nobel Prize (1927), is still getting recognition for his groundbreaking research more than 40 years after his death. The latest acknowledgment comes from the American Physical Society (APS), which has designated Washington University in St. Louis — where Compton did his Nobel Prize-winning research on X-rays — as a site of historical significance to physics. The APS Historic Sites Committee selected Washington University along with four other U.S. sites to be the first listed on the APS’ recently launched Register of Historic Sites. A ceremony will be held at 11 a.m. Dec. 12 in the Women’s Building Lounge, followed by three talks about Compton beginning at 2 p.m. in Crow Hall, Room 201.

The American Physical Society Historic Sites Committee selected WUSTL along with four other U.S. sites, honoring physicist Arthur Holly Compton.

Carl M. Bender, Ph.D., professor of physics in Arts & Sciences, delivered a talk, titled “Ghost Busting: Making Sense of Non-Hermitian Hamiltonians,” as a principal invited speaker at four international conferences this summer. The first conference was the 10th Claude Itzykson Meeting on “Quantum Field Theory Then and Now,” held in June at the Service […]