Science & Technology

Photo by Robert BostonGov. Matt Blunt addressed a group of several hundred local science, business and academic leaders at WUSTL’s 21st Century Science: Foundation for Innovation symposium May 31 at the Eric P. Newman Education Center on the School of Medicine campus. Hear the Governor’s speech in its entirety, as well as Chancellor Mark Wrighton’s closing remarks.

Assab and Massawa, the two camels that produced antibodies for the caffeine testThree llamas and two camels have provided a way to tell whether your waiter swapped regular coffee for decaf in your after-dinner cup. Using the heat-resistant antibodies these camels and llamas make, researchers at the School of Medicine are developing a quick test for caffeine that works even with hot beverages. The researchers plan to adapt their technology to a simple test (“dipstick”) that can be used to check for caffeine in a variety of drinks.

Washington University in St. Louis will host a symposium May 30-31 to bring together people interested in developing new enterprises in Missouri based on research discoveries.

Robert Morley & Ed Richter investigated static electricity buildup from sliding down a plastic slide, which can temporarily silence the world to cochlear implantees.

David Kilper/WUSTL PhotoMemory Elvin-Lewis in the Goldfarb Greenhouse inspects a kava plant. Elvin-Lewis has written a chapter in a new book that is critical of the unregulated U.S. herbal trade.Ginsengs, echinaceas, and ephedras, oh my! These herbs sound innocuous enough, however, according to Memory Elvin-Lewis, Ph.D., professor of microbiology and ethnobotany in biomedicine in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, Americans are unaware of the dangers inherent in these herbal supplements. More…

Courtesy image/WUSTL PhotoFor some deaf children, a plastic slide is a more formidable foe than the school wedgie-giver. Static electricity buildup from sliding down a plastic slide — instant summertime fun for those with normal hearing — can temporarily silence the world to cochlear implantees. Two electrical engineers at Washington University in St. Louis tested static electricity buildup — which can zap a cochlear implant — on sliding children to quantify the sparks. Thanks to some publicity and increased awareness, their research has inspired the St. Louis County Parks and Recreation Department to consider the problem, and an anti-static coating company to try to solve it. More…

David Kilper/WUSTL PhotoChristine Kirmaier (left) and Dewey Holten making adjustments in their sophisticated laser laboratory. Their findings advance the understanding of photosynthesis.In the famous Robert Frost poem, “The Road Not Taken,” the persona, forced to travel one of two roads, takes the one less traveled by, and “that has made all the difference.” Chemists at Washington University in St. Louis and Stanford University, in kinship with Frost, have modified a key protein in a bacterium to move electrons along a pathway not normally traveled by. They got this to happen 70 percent of the time. That yield “makes all the difference.” More…

Olga Pontes & Craig PikaardThe protein HDA6 shows up as a red stain in this Arabidopsis leaf cell nucleus.A team of researchers, including biologists at Washington University in St. Louis, has discovered the key role one protein plays in a major turn-off — in this case, the turning off of thousands of nearly identical genes in a hybrid plant. Studying the phenomenon of nucleolar dominance, in which one parental set of ribosomal genes in a hybrid is silenced, Craig Pikaard, Ph.D., Washington University professor of biology in Arts & Sciences and colleagues have identified the protein HDA6 as an important player in the silencing. More…

Researchers seeking insights into kidney failure in human infants have located the source of a 30-year-old mystery mutation that causes similar problems in a mouse line.

Photograph of *Spinosaurus* dinosaur bones found in a German museum.A geologist at Washington University has confirmed the discovery of a geologist from another era by discovering presumably lost photographs in a German museum. The finding is important to the history of paleontology. More…