Arts & Sciences

In June, a rover named Zoe set out into the Atacama Desert on the west coast of South America to test a suite of instruments intended for future missions to Mars under Mars-like conditions. One of the instruments aboard Zoe was a Raman spectrometer designed by a team led by Alian Wang of Washington University in St. Louis. A fragile lab instrument that was ruggidized to survive the desert, the Raman spectrometer is expected to fly on the 2020 Mars mission.

Some social amoebae farm the bacteria they eat. Now a collaboration of scientists at Washington University in St. Louis and Harvard University has taken a closer look at one lineage, or clone, of  D. discoideum farmer. This farmer carries not one but two strains of bacteria. One strain is the “seed corn” for a crop of edible bacteria, and the other strain is a weapon that produces defensive chemicals. The edible bacteria, the scientists found, evolved from the toxic one.

The International Society of Photosynthesis Research, meeting this August in St. Louis, is offering an afternoon of talks and demonstrations about the original “green” chemistry invented by bacteria and plants and its relevance to our energy future. Intended for teachers, students and the public, “Photosynthesis in our Lives” will take place from 3- 5 p.m. the afternoon of Sunday, August 11, 2013 in the Parkview room at the Hyatt Regency at the Arch.  RSVP to: http://parc.wustl.edu/outreachRSVP by August 7, 2013.

Washington University in St. Louis chemist D. André d’Avignon, who manages the university’s high-resolution nuclear magnetic resonance facility, has been named the winner of the 2013 Saint Louis Award. The Saint Louis Award, administered by the St. Louis section of the American Chemical Society, is given to an individual who has made outstanding contributions to the profession of chemistry and demonstrated the potential to further the advancement of the chemical profession.

University College, the adult, evening and continuing education division in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has developed three new degree programs, including a master’s in statistics that is the only one offered in the St. Louis area. The other two new  programs are a bachelor’s in communications and a bachelor’s in journalism. University College will offer the new programs this fall semester, which begins Aug. 27.

With the help of modern genetic technology and the resources of the International Rice GeneBank, which contains more than 112,000 different types of rice, evolutionary biologist Kenneth Olsen has been able to look back in time at the double domestication of rice (in Asia and in Africa) and its double “de-domestication” to form two weedy strains. Olsen predicts the introduction of pesticide-resistant rice will drive ever faster adaptation in weedy rice.

An Olin Library exhibition, titled William H. Gass: The Soul Inside the Sentence, ends July 31. But a newly launched digital version of the exhibit allows for ongoing exploration of a wide-ranging selection of the esteemed writer’s drafts, interviews, photographs and more. A gallery talk will be held at 9 a.m. Friday, July 19, in Olin Library’s Ginkgo Reading Room, providing a guided tour of the in-person exhibition.

Archaeologists tunneling beneath the main temple of the ancient Maya city of El Perú-Waka’ in northern Guatemala have discovered an intricately carved stone monument with hieroglyphic text detailing the exploits of a little-known sixth-century princess whose progeny prevailed in a bloody, back-and-forth struggle between two of the civilization’s most powerful royal dynasties, Guatemalan cultural officials announced July 16.

Piano prodigy, social activist, folksinger and chart-topping recording artist — Judy Collins has done it all. This fall, “Sweet Judy Blue Eyes” will launch WUSTL’s 2013-14 Edison Ovations Series. Featuring almost a dozen events by nationally and internationally known artists, the season will range from athletic contemporary dance and incisive one-man shows to hip-hop violin and the world’s first live-action graphic novel.

Ovations 2013-14