Science & Technology

The American Heart Association has recognized the McKelvey School of Engineering’s Jonathan Silva with its Established Investigator Award. The five-year $400,000 award will support his work into precision medicine for patients with irregular heartbeat.

A team led by Song Hu at the McKelvey School of Engineering found a way to measure biomarkers in the body with higher accuracy by combining a Bessel beam with deep learning.

The McKelvey School of Engineering’s Hong Chen and her team are developing tiny sensors to detect blast-induced traumatic brain injury with new funding from the Office of Naval Research.

Insect-eating plants have fascinated biologists for more than a century, but how plants evolved the ability to capture and consume live prey has largely remained a mystery. Biologist Ivan Radin in Arts & Sciences and collaborators investigated the molecular basis of plant carnivory in sundews and found evidence that it evolved from mechanisms plants use to defend themselves.

Geoscientist Rita Parai in Arts & Sciences uses noble gas isotopes to better understand the formation and evolution of planetary bodies. Her new modeling study published in PNAS shows that the deep mantle had low concentrations of volatiles like xenon and water when it formed, setting up an internal viscosity contrast with lasting impacts.

A research group led by Rohit Pappu in the McKelvey School of Engineering and Anthony Hyman at the Max Planck Institute have discovered a new, relevant level of structure in cells.

Research from the lab of Patrick Hill in psychological and brain sciences in Arts & Sciences shows a link in older adults between social interactions and having a sense of purpose.

Camelina, an oilseed plant grown in modern-day Ukraine, may have been a more important and widespread crop than previously thought, according to collaborators from anthropology and biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. Their findings could inform breeding programs to improve this crop for biofuels applications.

New approaches to help save animals from extinction may come from experts outside of the traditional natural science disciplines. The Living Earth Collaborative invites social scientists, political scientists, engineers and other experts from the university community who would like to be involved in efforts to help with conservation projects to participate in a July 21 social event.

A team that received early support from the Living Earth Collaborative was awarded a $633,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to evaluate pollination in orchards across the city of St. Louis. They will examine how factors such as human population density, socioeconomic status, soil type and surrounding vegetation impact insect numbers and fruit yield.