Arts & Sciences

A team of WUSTL scientists have vaporized the Earth — if only by simulation, that is, mathematically and inside a computer. They weren’t just practicing their evil overlord skills. By baking model Earths, they are trying to figure out what astronomers should see when they look at the atmospheres of super-Earths in a bid to learn the planets’ compositions.

New research from Washington University in St. Louis suggests that as much as 10 percent of individual differences in intelligence can be explained by the strength of neural pathways connecting the lateral prefrontal cortex to the rest of the brain. Findings establish “global brain connectivity” as a new method for understanding human intelligence.

Saturn’s ice moon Iapetus has more giant landslides than any solar system body other than Mars. Measurements of the avalanches suggest that some mechanism lowered their coefficients of friction so that they flowed rather than tumbled, traveling extraordinary distances before coming to rest. Scientists at Washington University in St. Louis, who have been studying the ice avalanches suggest a experimental test that might provide some answers.

Two WUSTL professors — Peter J. Kastor, PhD, and Jessica Rosenfeld, PhD — have been named 2012 American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) fellows. Kastor, professor of history and American culture studies, both in Arts & Sciences, will pursue research on Creating a Federal Government, 1789-1829. Rosenfeld, associate professor of English in Arts & Sciences, will work on her book Envying thy Neighbor: Pleasure, Identity and Gender in Late Medieval Literature.

Henry L. “Roddy” Roediger III, PhD, an internationally recognized scholar of human memory and the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has received the William James Fellow Award from the Association for Psychological Science (APS). Describing Roediger as “one of the world’s best known and most respected researchers in cognitive psychology,” the APS presented him with its highest honor during the annual convention in Chicago May 24-27.

Cleon R. Yohe Jr., PhD, emeritus professor of mathematics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, died Tuesday, June 26, of cancer. He was 70.

Four staff members — including Assistant Dean Sean McWilliams (right) — received the Arts & Sciences Outstanding Staff Award from Gary S. Wihl, PhD, the Hortense & Tobias Lewin Distinguished Professor in the Humanities and 
dean of the faculty of Arts & Sciences. Presented annually, the award honors non-teaching personnel for creative contributions and exemplary performance that significantly add to the effectiveness of the teaching, advising, counseling and research efforts in Arts & Sciences.

Talk about climbing the walls. In Leo, the gravity-defying new show from Berlin’s Circle of Eleven, the acrobatic star, Tobias Wegner, is trapped in a room seemingly absent the laws of physics. Leo is one of two striking works of physical theatre set to launch Washington University in St. Louis’ 2012-13 Edison Ovations Series this fall. In all, the season will feature 14 events by nationally and internationally known dance, theatre and musical artists.

How strong are the links in food webs? An experiment at Washington University in St. Louis demonstrates that they’re strong enough for a disturbance  to propagate across four trophic levels and two ecosystems. The experiment demonstrates that invasive species such as purple loosestrife could have broad effects on surrounding plant and animal communities, many of them cryptic.

A new assay that uses mitochondrial DNA that mutates faster than nuclear DNA has allowed scientists at Washington University in St. Louis to identify one of the major animal reservoirs for the ehlichioses, STARI and other tick-borne diseases in the southeastern United States. The animal turned out to be the eastern gray squirrel.