Arts & Sciences

Two doctoral students have received Fulbright-Hays grants to conduct research abroad in the 2010-2011 academic year.

Many food plants contain cyanogenic glycosides that can release cyanide when the food is eaten. What’s more, a greater proportion of food plants than plants in general are cyanogenic. WUSTL researcher Kenneth M. Olsen, PhD, offers an explanation of this toxic puzzle.

Matthew J. Gabel, PhD, professor of political science in Arts & Sciences, has been awarded a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. The award will support his work on judicial decision-making in the European Union.

A new Undergraduate Honors Program will be offered beginning this fall semester at University College, the adult, evening and continuing education division in Arts & Sciences. The honors program offers high-achieving students the opportunity to join a learning community dedicated to an exceptionally rigorous but flexible program of study that enables students to work closely with a faculty mentor on an independent project and earn the distinction of Latin honors.

A new bachelor of science in health care will be offered this fall semester at University College, the adult, evening and continuing education division in Arts & Sciences. The degree program, which begins with the start of the semester Aug. 31, provides an academic foundation for students pursuing managerial, clinical or research careers in health care.

A new degree, the bachelor of science in sustainability, that provides an interdisciplinary approach to understanding and resolving today’s most pressing and complex environmental, economic and social challenges, has been developed at University College, the adult, evening and continuing education division in Arts & Sciences. The program, which will be offered beginning with the start of the semester Aug. 31, treats sustainable living from multiple perspectives — scientific, political, economic, social, historical, philosophical, anthropological and literary. 

Scientists have sequenced the genome of the colonial alga, Volvox carteri, the journal Science announced. While the photosynthesizing colonial algae is fascinating in itself, knowing its genome may also help scientists engineer algae able to produce economic biofuels.

Archeobotanists argue that plant domestication involved much trial and error in many different geographic regions over a long period of time. A genetic technique that allows domesticated and wild strains of the same plant to be compared shows that domestication requires only simple genetic changes. Yet the findings don’t contradict the archeobotanical data.  

Liviu Mirica, PhD, assistant professor of chemistry in Arts & Sciences, and Yinjie Tang, PhD, assistant professor of chemical engineering, receive Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Achievement Awards on June 14 from Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton.

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is not simply a random accident. There will be more of these spills to come, as the days of easy oil are over, says an anthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis.