Science & Technology

WooleyUsing a technique pioneered by Washington University in St. Louis chemist Karen Wooley, Ph.D., scientists have developed a novel way to make discrete carbon nanoparticles for electrical components used in industry and research.

Photo courtesy University of IowaCould there be a link between the obesity epidemic and eugenic thinking? A historian of science at Washington University in St. Louis poses the question.As obesity rates continue to grow in the United States, threatening the health of millions of Americans, a historian of science warns that social problems such as this cannot be solved through science, especially genetics, alone. In this new “gene age” in which large amounts of research funds are used for studies on the genetics of such complex social traits as alcoholism, criminality or obesity, for example, Garland E. Allen, Ph.D., professor of biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, says the climate is ripe for a “re-packaged” eugenics in American society. Allen points out that 100 years ago, eugenics, a movement that claimed many social, personality and mental traits were hereditary, was emerging as a major social movement in Europe and the United States. His concern: it might well still be with us today.

In the March 5 issue of Science, Ann Nguyen of Washington University in St. Louis and her advisor, Ernst K. Zinner, Ph.D., research professor of physics and of earth and planetary sciences, both in Arts & Sciences, describe nine specks of silicate stardust — presolar silicate grains — from one of the most primitive meteorites known. This is the first reported finding of silicate stardust from a meteorite.

HoltenA chemist at Washington University in St. Louis and his colleagues has taken an elegant chemical approach to turn a nonfluorescent organometallic complex into a strong emitter by hampering its internal rotations at the molecular level. Dewey Holten, Ph.D., Washington University professor of chemistry, Jonathan Lindsey, Ph.D., of North Carolina State University and David Bocian, Ph.D., University of California, Riverside, have made a molecule photoluminescent by hindering its intramolecular rotation.

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Administrators from leading American universities come together to discuss environmental initiatives at their respective campuses.

For the first time, researchers have identified organic material in interplanetary dust particles (IDPs), gathered from the Earth’s stratosphere, that was made before the birth of our Solar System.

Image courtesy of the Cellar Store, San Bernardino, CA.A new book is persuading ecologists to think “outside the helmet”.An ecologist at Washington University in St. Louis has co-authored a new book that is forcing the pith helmet set to “think outside the helmet.” Jonathan M. Chase, Ph.D., assistant professor of biology in Arts& Sciences at Washington University and Mathew A. Leibold, Ph.D.,associate professor of integrative biology at the University of Texas at Austin, take on one of the tenets of ecology, niche theory, which holds that species evolve and thrive because of their particular environment and what activities they do to shape that environment, providing them their niche, if you will.

BlankCarrine Blank, Ph.D. , assistant professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, has found that the currently accepted dates for the appearance of oxygen-producing bacteria and sulfur-producing bacteria on the early earth are not correct. She believes that these bacteria appeared on earth much later than is now believed.

Photo courtesy U.S. Army Corps of EngineersBarge traffic makes its way through a lock on the Upper Mississippi.”Our Rivers: A Sustainable Resource?” is the focus of a public education forum that four Washington University faculty will lead as part of a community-wide symposium being held in conjunction with the 5th annual St. Louis Earth Day Celebration, April 22-23. The sustainable rivers program will be held April 22 from 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and will feature Washington University faculty Charles Buescher, professor of environmental engineering, Robert Criss, Ph.D., professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences and William Lowry, Ph.D., professor of political science in Arts & Sciences. The colloquium will provide a background history of the rivers in our region and their various uses in transportation, agriculture, power production, recreation and public water supply.