Arts & Sciences

Helium is drifting away.In America, helium is running out of gas. The element that lifts things like balloons, spirits and voice ranges is being depleted so rapidly in the world’s largest reserve, outside of Amarillo, Texas, that supplies are expected to be depleted there within the next eight years. This deflates more than the Goodyear blimp and party favors. Its larger impact is on science and technology, according to Lee Sobotka, Ph.D., professor of chemistry and physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

Taking classes with a friend can help adult students stay focused on their schoolwork.So it’s 2008 — the year you decided is the one to start or finish that degree you’ve always intended to earn. But if it’s been awhile since you’ve stepped foot inside a classroom — or at least one that wasn’t your kids’ — here are some suggestions to help you follow through on your New Year’s resolution.

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto is not only a great loss to Pakistan, but also a great loss to the world says a sociocultural anthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis who lived in Pakistan for six months and whose research focuses on Islamic movements in that country and in Afghanistan.

Photo by Mary Butkus / WUSTL PhotoStudy finds that the larger the bill, the smaller the tip percentage.With the holiday season upon us, Americans are grappling more than ever with what’s appropriate when it comes to rewarding service providers with tips, gifts and other token gratuities, suggests Leonard Green, a psychology professor in Arts & Sciences who studies tipping behavior at Washington University in St. Louis. Video available.

“Faith in Schools?” is focus of new book by WUSTL’s Ian MacMullen.Arguing that democratic principles do not support a strict separation of church and state in educational policy, a new book contends that government has both the responsibility to pay for religious schools and the right to regulate what’s taught within them.

NASA/JPLThick or thin ice shell on Jupiter’s moon Europa? Scientists are all but certain that Europa has an ocean underneath its surface ice, but do not know how thick this ice might be.Jupiter’s moon Europa is just as far away as ever, but new research is bringing scientists closer to being able to explore its tantalizing ice-covered ocean and determine its potential for harboring life. William B. McKinnon, professor of earth and planetary sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, is discussing some of these recent findings and new opportunities for exploring Europa in a news briefing on Thursday, Dec. 13, 2007, at the meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

Twenty-eight-day-old *Physcomitrella* gametophyte showing the leafy gametophores in the center and the protonemal filaments radiating outward.The complete collection of genes — the genome — of a moss has been sequenced, providing scientists an important evolutionary link between single-celled algae and flowering plants. Just as the sequencing of animal genomes has helped scientists understand human genomic history, the sequencing of plant genomes will shed light on the evolution of the plant kingdom, according to Ralph S. Quatrano, Ph.D., the Spencer T. Olin Professor of Biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis and the corresponding author of the paper.

NASA/JPL/Space Science InstituteHot spots on Saturn’s tiny satellite, Enceladus, could be telltale signs of life on the frigid moon.Enceladus, the tiny satellite of Saturn, is colder than ice, but data gathered by the Cassini-Huygens Mission to Saturn and Titan has detected a hot spot that could mean there is life in the old moon after all. In fact, for researchers of the outer planets, Enceladus is so intellectually hot, it’s smokin’.

David Kilper/WUSTL Photo ServicesThe combination of beer, wastewater, microbes, fuel cells, high-school students and teachers sounds like a witches’ brew for an old-fashioned, illicit 1960s beach party. Instead, these are the components of a new high-school science curriculum being developed by researchers at Washington University and two St. Louis area high-school teachers.

Researchers concentrated on large-scale connections between frontal and posterior brain regions that are associated with high-level cognitive functions such as learning and remembering.Comparisons of the brains of young and old people have revealed that normal aging may cause cognitive decline due to deterioration of the connections among large-scale brain systems, including a decrease in the integrity of the brain’s “white matter,” the tissue containing nerve cells that carry information, according to a new study co-authored by several researchers from Washington University in St. Louis.