Biogas production is all in the mixing

David Kilper/WUSTL PhotoMuthanna Al-Dahhan (left) and graduate student Rajneesh Varma are researching effective ways to take agricultural waste and make biofuel out of it.Engineers at Washington University in St. Louis, using an impressive array of imaging and tracking technologies, have determined the importance of mixing in anaerobic digesters for bioenergy production and animal and farm wastes treatment. They are studying ways to take “the smell of money,” as farmers long have termed manure’s odor, and produce biogas from it.

Psychiatric expert advocates tolerance and diversity

Co-author of Come On People: On the Path from Victims to Victors, Alvin Poussaint, will present the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial lecture for the Assembly Series. The talk will be held at 4 p.m., on Tuesday, April 15 in the Laboratory Sciences Auditorium. Poussaint co-wrote Come on People with activist comedian Bill Cosby […]

World’s oldest novel celebrates 1,000th birthday

One thousand years ago this year, a Japanese court lady put the finishing touches on what would become the world’s oldest novel. Spanning 75 years, more than 350 characters and brimming with romantic poems, “The Tale of Genji” tells the story of an emperor’s son, his quest for love and the many women he meets […]

Poussaint to speak on tolerance and diversity

An expert on race relations, prejudice and diversity issues in a multicultural society, Alvin Poussaint, M.D., will present the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Lecture for the Assembly Series. The talk will be held at 4 p.m., Tuesday, April 15, in the Laboratory Sciences Auditorium on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis.

Irish poet Carson to read from works

Irish poet and novelist Ciaran Carson will read from his work at 8 p.m. Monday, April 14, for the Writing Program in Arts & Sciences. The event, sponsored as part of the Writing Program’s spring Reading Series, is free and open to the public and takes place in Duncker Hall, Room 201, Hurst Lounge. Carson […]

World’s oldest novel celebrates 1,000th birthday

One mark of a great novel, it’s been said, is its ability to stand the “test of time,” to remain captivating to readers from generation to generation. Washington University will honor such a novel Friday, April 18, with two campus events celebrating the 1,000th anniversary of “The Tale of Genji”, a central pillar of the Japanese literary canon.

Barch named new director of Conte Center

BarchThe Silvio Conte Center for Neuroscience Research at Washington University has a new director. Deanna Barch, associate professor of psychology in Arts & Sciences, of psychiatry and of radiology, takes over leadership of the center from John Csernansky, the former Gregory B. Couch Professor of Psychiatry, who has become the chairman of psychiatry at Northwestern University.

Technique traces origins of disease genes in mixed races

A team of researchers from Washington University in St. Louis that includes Alan R. Templeton and the Israeli Institute of Technology (Technion) in Haifa has developed a technique to detect the ancestry of disease genes in hybrid, or mixed, human populations. The technique, called expected mutual information (EMI), determines how a set of DNA markers is likely to show the ancestral origin of locations on each chromosome.
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