Arts & Sciences

Animal milk was essential to east African herders at least 5,000 years ago, according to a new study that uncovers the consumption habits in what is now Kenya and Tanzania — and sheds a light on human evolution, according to new research from anthropologists from Washington University in St. Louis.

Shyam Kiran Akula, a 2016 Washington University in St. Louis alum, has been named a 2020 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellow, a prestigious academic honor for outstanding immigrants and children of immigrants who are pursuing a graduate education in the United States.

In the video series “WashU Between the Lines,″ students share honest, personal stories about their lives on campus. Students Shelly Gupta and Rory Mather, both subjects and co-creators of the series, hope the project will encourage students to get to know each other, as we say at Washington University, by name and by story. And not just the stories posted on Instagram or Facebook.

Lerone A. Martin, associate professor of religion and politics and incoming director of the American Culture Studies program in  Arts & Sciences, received a $250,000 grant from The Teagle Foundation to develop and implement a summer humanities program for promising, underserved high school students from the St. Louis region.

A research team led by Jonathan Losos, the William H. Danforth Distinguished Professor and professor of biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, was awarded $1.2 million for a CRISPR-based gene editing study of Central American lizards.

Washington University in St. Louis now offers a major in environmental analysis though the Environmental Studies program in Arts & Sciences. The major is a response to the global demand for environmental and sustainability experts who can think critically, communicate clearly and solve problems in collaboration with their communities. 

An international team of researchers that includes anthropologists at Washington University in St. Louis has unearthed the earliest known skull of Homo erectus, the first of our ancestors to be nearly human-like in their anatomy and aspects of their behavior. The effort was led by La Trobe University in Australia.

Researchers from Washington University in St. Louis studied the gut microbiomes of wild apes in the Republic of Congo, of captive apes in zoos in the U.S., and of people from around the world and discovered that lifestyle is more important than geography or even species in determining the makeup of the gut microbiome.

To mark National Poetry Month, the Center for the Humanities in Arts & Sciences is inviting readers of all backgrounds to create short poems in response to daily prompts.

Todd Decker and Kelly Daniel-Decker launched the Department of Music’s new “Musical Postcards” video series with an intimate living room performance of the Gershwin classic “Love is Here to Stay.”