Science & Technology

Growing biopiracy concerns have fueled urgent calls for a new system of legal protection for traditional knowledge. Detractors of the current patent systems say that the traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples and local communities does not readily fit into the existing rules of the industrialized world and that these rules basically promote the interests of the industrialized world. However, Charles McManis, J.D., IP and technology law expert and the Thomas and Karole Green Professor of Law at Washington University in St. Louis, argues that “at least in the short run, existing intellectual property regimes offer the most realistic avenue for securing effective legal protection for traditional knowledge holders.”

A Missouri mathematician believes that the state’s moniker has great bearing on the status of modern mathematical proofs: Show Me. Steven Krantz, Ph.D., professor of mathematics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, said that it is becoming more difficult to verify proofs today and that the concept of the proof has undergone serious change over the course of his 30-plus years career,

In just six months of collaboration, a Department of Energy grand challenge led by Washington University in St. Louis has resulted in the sequencing and annotation of a cyanobacterium that could yield clues to how environmental conditions influence key carbon fixation processes at the gene-mRNA-protein levels in an organism.

The recent revolution in the life sciences- the sequencing of the human genome, and development of “high throughput” technologies- has created new opportunities for investigation, and created new challenges for educators. Sarah C.R. Elgin, Ph.D., professor of biology; biochemistry and molecular biophysics; and education in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has been a proponent and creator of partnerships locally and nationwide to improve the life science education both in K-12 schools and at the undergraduate level.

More than 30 Washington University faculty, administrators and staff will participate in science and technology presentations when the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest general scientific organization, holds its annual meeting Feb. 16-20 at both the America’s Center and Renaissance Grand Hotel in downtown St. Louis.

The principal scientific investigator for the Mars Exploration Rover Mission, he’ll be introduced by WUSTL’s Ray Arvidson, the mission’s deputy principal investigator.

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.

Randy Korotev with a sample meteorite found in Siberia.The mysterious orb you find in your backyard that wasn’t there just the day before has to be a meteorite, right? Wrong. Overwhelmingly the chances are it’s a meteorwrong, says Randy Korotev, Ph.D., research associate professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. He says that 998 out of 1,000 meteorites are from asteroids, one out of 1,000 is from the Moon, and one out of 1,000 is from Mars. Of the hundreds of meteorites that have been found in the United States, none has been a lunar meteorite, and only one has been a Mars meteorite.

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.

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.