Science & Technology

Henric S. Krawczynski, Ph.D., assistant professor of physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, received the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Outstanding Junior Investigator Award in high-energy physics, one of eight scientists in the country to receive the prestigious recognition in 2004.

Robert Richards, a prominent expert on Darwin and evolutionary theory, will present a lecture titled “Did Ernst Haeckel Commit Fraud in Defending Darwin’s Theory,” on Oct. 21 as part of the Assembly Series. Richards conducts research and teaches in the history and philosophy of biology and psychology.

CiechanoverAaron Ciechanover, M.D., D.Sc., visiting professor of pediatrics at the School of Medicine and Research Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel, was selected Oct. 6 to receive the 2004 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Eric C. Leuthardt, M.D., a Washington University neurosurgeon at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, has been named one of this year’s Top Young Innovators by Technology Review, MIT’s Magazine of Innovation. The distinction is awarded each year to 100 individuals under age 35 whose innovative work in technology has a profound impact on the world.

A biomedical engineer at WUSTL has determined love taps are better than love jolts in addressing defibrillation.When it comes to affairs of the heart, love taps are preferred over love jolts. That is the result of a team of heart researchers including Igor Efimov, Ph.D., associate professor of biomedical engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, trying to effect a better implantable heart defibrillator. Efimov and his colleagues have modeled a system where an implantable heart defibrillator focuses in on rogue electrical waves created during heart arrhythmia and busts up the disturbance, dissipating it and preventing cardiac arrest.

Image courtesy USGSA team of geologists from China and the United States, including two from WUSTL, report evidence of at least three ice ages occurring between 750 and 600 million years ago.Glaciers reached Cape Cod, Massachusetts, in the most recent ice age about 20,000 years ago. But much harsher ice ages hit the Earth in an ancient geological interval known as “the Cryogenian Period” between 750 and 600 million years ago. A team of geologists from China and the United States, including two from Washington University in St. Louis, now report evidence of at least three ice ages during that ancient time.

PakrasiA research team of biologists and engineers led by faculty at Washington University in St. Louis is seeking to find the Fountain of Youth — not in Florida, but in photosynthetic cyanobacteria (ancient little blue-green algae). Looking at the cellular systems in cyanobacteria, and then in a model plant and a moss species, these researchers want to determine how these organisms protect themselves from radicals, which are chemical culprits in the aging process in everything from bacteria to human beings.

Photo by David KilperSt. Louis teachers gather at WUSTL to compare notes.At Washington University in St. Louis, teachers from five school districts are working with science and math education faculty in an effort designed to align curriculum to the NCLB standards and to improve instruction. Their work is supported by $6.5 million from the National Science Foundation, through funding from NCLB.

Philip Stahl, prominent cell biologist and physiologist and Jonathan Turner, internationally recognized for his accomplishments in computer networks and telecommunications, will receive Washington University’s 2004 Faculty Achievement Awards and summarize their scholarly work at an awards ceremony, as part of the Assembly Series on Sept. 23.

Photo courtesy U.S. Geological Survey/SOFIAGenetic studies performed by Washington University biologists shows that the sunshine State is the exporter of brown lizards to other countries.A new study headed by biologists at Washington University in St. Louis shows that Florida is an exporter of more than just fruit and star athletes. Studying genetic variation in the common brown lizard, Anolis sagrei, the researchers found that introduced populations of the lizard in five different countries can be traced back to the Sunshine State as their site of export.