Arts & Sciences

Throughout our lives, our brains are always changing. To capture that transformation, scientists will scan the brains of people from kindergarten through their later years to build maps of the brain as it develops and changes over the decades. The endeavor, led by researchers at Washington University, is funded by two grants totaling $34 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The discarded bone of a chicken leg, still etched with teeth marks from a dinner thousands of years ago, provides some of the oldest known physical evidence for the introduction of domesticated chickens to the continent of Africa, research from Washington University in St. Louis has confirmed.

Zhao Ma, assistant professor of East Asian languages in Arts & Sciences, contributed to the making of the PBS documentary “The Battle of Chosin,” which will air on PBS on Tuesday, Nov. 1.

If mental illness runs in your family, your genetic makeup may also make you more likely to use drugs and alcohol, suggests new research from Washington University in St. Louis.

In a serendipitous moment, scientists studying light sensing molecules in plants have discovered that they are also temperature sensors.The discovery may eventually allow them to design crop varieties that are better able to cope with a warming world.

William J. Maxwell, professor of English and of African and African-American studies in Arts & Sciences, has won a 2016 American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation for “F.B. Eyes: How J. Edgar Hoover’s Ghostreaders Framed African American Literature” (2015).

Carol Camp Yeakey, a professor of education, of urban studies, of international and area studies and of American culture studies, all in Arts & Sciences, has been named the Marshall S. Snow Professor in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

The American Physical Society and the American Institute of Physics this month awarded the 2017 Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics to Carl M. Bender of Washington University in St. Louis .

Carl Phillips, professor of English in Arts & Sciences, has won the 2016 poetry award from PEN Center USA for “Reconnaissance,” his latest collection.

New conductor Horst Buchholz and new director of strings Amy Greenhalgh will make their debuts with the Washington University Symphony Orchestra Oct. 30. The concert will take place at The E. Desmond Lee Concert Hall in the 560 Music Center.