Newsroom Stories

Glaciations on Mars are different from those on Earth. During a Martian glacial period, water vapor that would otherwise travel to the north polar cap instead snows out at lower latitudes, where ice then accumulates. Radargrams of the north polar region of Mars record the most recent mid-latitude Martian glacial period and the regrowth of the polar ice since then.

Friends and family of Barry Weller will gather from 7 – 9 p.m. June 27 at the Webster Groves High School Auditorium for a celebration of his life. The Webster Groves High School Auditorium is located at 100 Selma Avenue.

The research team of Liviu Mirica, associate professor of chemistry in Arts & Sciences, has developed novel methods for generating the buildings blocks of important compounds with the common metal nickel. The work expands scientists’ toolbox for nickel-based chemistry, and contributes to the movement of “green chemistry” toward a 21st century of sustainable synthesis.

Washington University in St. Louis will welcome three of the brightest stars in the classical firmament — Jonathan Biss, Yefim Bronfman and Nathan Gunn — to the 560 Music Center as part of its new Great Artist Series.

Using computer models, New Horizons team members have been able to determine the depth of the layer of solid nitrogen ice within Pluto’s distinctive “heart” feature — a large plain informally known as Sputnik Planum — and how fast that ice is flowing. “For the first time, we can really determine what these strange welts of the icy surface of Pluto really are,” said William B. McKinnon, who led the study.

Washington University in St. Louis is one of 10 American higher education institutions chosen to host the EducationUSA Academy this summer. The initiative, sponsored by the State Department and its cooperative partner, World Learning, provides an immersive environment designed to prepare high school students from around the globe who aspire to attend an American college or university.

With research that points to potential therapeutic targets for autoimmune diseases, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified genetic master switches that turn up – or down – the activity of specific types of immune cells.

Heralded on the cover of Time magazine in 2000 as a genetically modified (GMO) crop with the potential to save millions of lives in the Third World, Golden Rice is still years away from field introduction and even then, may fall short of lofty health benefits still cited regularly by GMO advocates, suggests a new study from Washington University in St. Louis.

New research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis indicates stem cells located in “pockets” in the intestine avoid contact with a prominent metabolite produced by beneficial microbes living in the gut. That metabolite – butyrate – restricts the proliferation of stem cells, potentially hampering the intestine from repairing itself after an injury or damage.

The inaugural cohort of Washington University’s College Prep Program will spend its final summer on campus learning from a leading scientist and lifelong musician: Provost Holden Thorp. Thorp has created a college-credit course that explores teamwork in science and music. Now in its third year, the College Prep Program is a multiyear, immersive program for talented, low-income high school students.