Science & Technology

Gamers are faster than you and I.While Mortal Combat, Grand Theft Auto, or Halo may be foreign to aging generations, a new study out of Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Toronto suggests that video games like these promote a kind of mental “expertise” that could prove to be useful in the non-virtual world — potentially in rehabilitation and for the elderly. Alan Castel, Ph.D., Washington University post doctorate fellow in psychology in Arts & Sciences, conducted a study to examine how video games can lead to a degree of expertise in certain domains, and how that might influence video game players’ visual search patterns.

Where have you gone, Joe Neandertal?The human fossil evidence from the Mladec Caves in Moravia, Czech Republic, excavated more than 100 years ago, has been proven for the first time, through modern radiocarbon dating, to be the oldest cranial, dental and postcranial assemblage of early modern humans in Europe. A team of researchers from the Natural History Museum in Vienna, from the University of Vienna in Austria and from Washington University in St. Louis recently conducted the first successful direct dating of the material.

Male Bahamas mosquitofish (left) chasing a female (right).A biologist at Washington University in St. Louis has shown that for some fish species, females prefer males with larger sexual organs, and actually choose them for mating. That does not exclude males with an average-sized sex organ, called a gonopodium. These fish out-compete the larger-endowed males in a predator-laden environment because they have a faster burst speed than the males with larger genitalia, thus avoiding predators and staying in the mating game.

Male Bahamas mosquitofish (left) chasing a female (right).A biologist at Washington University in St. Louis has shown that for some fish species, females prefer males with larger sexual organs, and actually choose them for mating. That does not exclude males with an average-sized sex organ, called a gonopodium. These fish out-compete the larger-endowed males in a predator-laden environment because they have a faster burst speed than the males with larger genitalia, thus avoiding predators and staying in the mating game.

This is *C. elegans*. Its genome was thought to have been completed until a WUSTL computer scientist found otherwise.A computer scientist at Washington University in St. Louis has applied software that he has developed to the genome of a worm and has found 150 genes that were missed by previous genome analysis methods. Moreover, using the software, he and his colleagues have developed predictions for the existence of a whopping 1,119 more genes.

Carinne Blank has a method she uses to date ancient life forms that could be helpful for specimens from Mars.A geologist from Washington University in St. Louis is developing new techniques to render a more coherent story of how primitive life arose and diverged on Earth – with implications for Mars.

Mars Exploration Rover mission scientists remind us that the amazing success of the rovers *Spirit* and *Opportunity* is a harbinger for the day when humans inhabit the Red Planet.The major drawback to a human mission to Mars is preparing for the one to two years of radiation and microgravity exposure that astronauts must endure. While that is a large hurdle, enabling technologies are emerging that should be able to make this goal a reality over the next couple of decades, and America should go for it. That’s the theme of a report from NASA’s 2002 Astrobiology Academy appearing soon as a paper in Acta Astronautica.

St. Louis is the site for the world’s premier software engineering annual conference from May 15-21 at the Adam’s Mark Hotel. The 27th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE 2005) features the latest research in software engineering, displays, exhibits, seminars, co-located conferences, and social gatherings that bring the world’s elite together in an unprecedented hub of activity in information technology (IT) in the Gateway City. Gruia-Catalin Roman, Ph.D., Harold B. and Adelaide G. Welge Professor of Computer Science and chair of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, is the general chair for ICSE 2005 and was highly influential in bringing the conference to St. Louis,

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute has chosen the School of Medicine as one of four national research centers dedicated to the advancement of nanotechnology. The center, funded by a five-year, $12.5 grant, will be headed by WUSM chemist Karen Wooley. Read more in the following St. Louis Post-Dispatch article.

Washington University in St. Louis has been chosen as a Program of Excellence in Nanotechnology (PEN) by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health. Karen Wooley, Ph.D., Washington University professor of chemistry in Arts & Sciences, is principal investigator of the Program, which NHLBI is funding at $12.5 million for five years.