Science & Technology

Nanoparticles attached to fibers in a blood clotNano-sized particles developed at the School of Medicine offer hope of replacing numerous medical tests, scans, or surgeries with a simple injection. The tiny spheres can travel through the bloodstream deep into the body to locate and highlight tumors undetectable by typical methods. While at the tumor site, the nanoparticles can deliver therapeutic agents to destroy the tumor.

Also known as the World Year of Physics, 2005 is featuring worldwide events of interest to physicists and the general public.

The recipient of the award gives the Robert A. Millikan Lecture at the American Association of Physics Teachers’ summer meeting.

ByrnesChristopher I. Byrnes, Ph.D., dean of the School of Engineering & Applied Science and the Edward H. and Florence G. Skinner Professor in Systems Science and Mathematics, has announced his intention to retire as dean after 15 years in the position, effective June 30, 2006, according to Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton.

Below is a link to the Washington University news release about the U.S. News & World Report undergraduate rankings for 2004-05: http://news-info.wustl.edu/news/page/normal/3627.html To view a full listing of U.S. News magazine, book and Web-only rankings for 2004-05, please visit the U.S. News & World Report site: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/rankindex_brief.php

Opened to external users in June, the Open Network Laboratory has already registered users from 14 different institutions.

A router in the new Open Network Laboratory, funded by NSF.A novel networking service has been made available to the research community by computer scientists at Washington University in St. Louis, enabling researchers and students remote, free use of the latest networking technology. Ultimately, the new Open Network Laboratory (ONL )can lead to innovations that can expand the capability of the Internet and other networking environments, said its director, Jonathan S. Turner, Ph.D., Henry Edwin Sever Professor of Engineering, and professor of computer science and engineering at WUSTL.

WUSTL researchers provide a field guide to exoplanets.Astronomers looking for earth-like planets in other solar systems — exoplanets — now have a new field guide thanks to earth and planetary scientists at Washington University in St. Louis. Bruce Fegley, Ph.D., Washington University professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, and Laura Schaefer, laboratory assistant, have used thermochemical equilibrium calculations to model the chemistry of silicate vapor and steam-rich atmospheres formed when earth-like planets are undergoing accretion. During the accretion process, with surface temperatures of several thousands degrees Kelvin (K), a magma ocean forms and vaporizes.

David Kilper/WUSTL PhotoFegley and Schaefer examine a meteorite.Using primitive meteorites called chondrites as their models, earth and planetary scientists at Washington University in St. Louis have performed outgassing calculations and shown that the early Earth’s atmosphere was a reducing one, chock full of methane, ammonia, hydrogen and water vapor. In making this discovery Bruce Fegley, Ph.D., Washington University professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, and Laura Schaefer, laboratory assistant, reinvigorate one of the most famous and controversial theories on the origins of life, the 1953 Miller-Urey experiment, which yielded organic compounds necessary to evolve organisms.

Alian Wang in the laboratoryA large team of NASA scientists, led by earth and planetary scientists at Washington University in St. Louis, details the first solid set of evidence for water having existed on Mars at the Gusev crater, exploration site of the rover Spirit.