Science & Technology

Jeffrey MarlowJeffrey J. Marlow, a senior in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, is one of 20 students nationwide named to the 2007 All-USA College Academic First Team, USA Today’s recognition program for outstanding undergraduates. Two other Washington University students were named to the third team and one student received honorable mention, resulting in Washington University tying with the University of Alabama for the most students selected in the newspaper’s competition.

Eric ChouTesting the wake-sleep cycleA biologist at Washington University in St. Louis and his collaborators have identified the factor in mammalian brain cells that keeps cells in synchrony so that functions like the wake-sleep cycle, hormone secretion and loco motor behaviors are coordinated daily.

NASALet’s visit Europa!William B. McKinnon, Ph.D., professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, says the space science community suffers from an embarrassment of riches when pondering which of Jupiter’s moons should be studied next, because they all differ in the way that they can reveal more about planets and how they behave. But he thinks it is Europa that clearly commands the most attention.

Eric ChouA slice through the earth, showing the attenuation anomalies within the mantle.A seismologist at Washington University in St. Louis has made the first 3-D model of seismic wave damping — diminishing — deep in the Earth’s mantle and has revealed the existence of an underground water reservoir at least the volume of the Arctic Ocean. The research, which analyzed 80,000 shear waves from more than 600,000 seismograms, provides the first evidence for water existing in the Earth’s deep mantle.

Lihong Wang, Ph.D., became the first Gene K. Beare Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering in a Nov. 29 ceremony.

Harvard physicist Lisa Randall explains how our visible world of four dimensions could be embedded in a higher-dimensional universe at the Assembly Series at 11 a.m. on Feb. 7 in Graham Chapel.

Michael Marrah and Bradley Castanho have been named assistant vice chancellors for research and co-directors of the Office of Technology Management (OTM) at Washington University. Together, they bring expertise in business, science and law to the OTM, which is charged with identifying University discoveries that have commercial potential and licensing them to private companies, where the technology can be developed for the benefit of the public.

Studying stars has never been so easy, thanks to Ernst K. Zinner, Ph.D., research professor of physics and of earth and planetary sciences, both in Arts & Sciences, at Washington University. For the past 30-plus years, Zinner has helped develop and fine-tune increasingly sophisticated instruments that allow researchers to get detailed information about circumstellar and interstellar dust — actual stardust — right in their own labs. These precision instruments use a measurement technique called secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS). To recognize Zinner’s important contributions to the development of SIMS and its many applications in the earth and space sciences, a scientific symposium will be held Feb. 3-4 in Crow Hall, Room 201.

Scientists at the School of Medicine in St. Louis and the biotech firm Nimblegen Systems Inc. have successfully tested a technique for identifying newly recognized DNA variations that may influence disease risk. Rather than focus on errors and alterations in DNA sequence, the new technique highlights variations in the number of copies of a particular gene.

Harvard physicist Lisa Randall explains how our visible world of four dimensions could be embedded in a higher-dimensional universe at the Assembly Series at 11 a.m. on Feb. 7 in Graham Chapel.