Arts & Sciences

We may not be able to change recent events in our lives, but how well we remember them plays a key role in how our brains model what’s happening in the present and predict what’s likely to occur in the future, finds new research in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.

Under warming conditions, Arctic wolf spiders’ tastes in prey might be changing, according to new research by biologist Amanda Koltz in Arts & Sciences — initiating a new cascade of food web interactions that could potentially alleviate some impacts of global warming.

Researchers in physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis are working out a theory of thermodynamics in quantum physics and finding some interesting results, including “negative information.”

A team at Washington University in St. Louis has created a bacteria that uses photosynthesis to create oxygen during the day, and at night, uses nitrogen to create chlorophyll for photosynthesis. This development could lead to plants that do the same, eliminating the use of some — or possibly all — man-made fertilizer, which has a high environmental cost.

Luis Salas, assistant professor of classics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has been awarded a prestigious fellowship from the Loeb Classical Library Foundation at Harvard University.

By activating a small subset of the neurons involved in setting daily rhythms, biologist Erik Herzog in Arts & Sciences has unlocked a cure for jet lag in mice, as reported in a July 12 advance online publication of Neuron.

The nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court has renewed debate about the future of Roe v. Wade. Mary Ann Dzuback, chair of the Department of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies in Arts & Sciences, suspects that conservative justices will continue chipping away at reproductive choice, rather than mount a frontal assault on the decision. But she warns that by undermining Roe’s guarantee of reproductive choice, the court risks its own reputation and authority.

The Gateway Festival Orchestra will perform music of Jean Sibelius, Launy Grøndahl and Edvard Grieg at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, July 15, as part of its 2018 season of free summer concerts. Also on the program will be music from “Mamma Mia,” based on songs by the pop group ABBA. The concert series will continue July 22 and 29.

In 2015, Washington University re-established the Department of Sociology in Arts & Sciences. Concentrating on the origins and impacts of inequality, faculty and students are investigating some of the nation’s most critical and urgent social challenges.

In just a few years, students have come to think of the sociology department as a home, as their own special place at the university.