Arts & Sciences

Washington University in St. Louis and the Living Earth Collaborative are part of a new Missouri-based conservation initiative led by the Saint Louis Zoo. Working with the Endangered Wolf Center, scientists are looking to answer ecological and health-related questions about canids — red foxes, gray foxes and coyotes — as well as bobcats, which live in close association with canids.

Crows and ravens have great flying ability, which allows them to gain access to new places more easily. While their flying skills were key to their success, new research from biologists in Arts & Sciences also shows that big bodies and big brains played an important role in helping crows and ravens survive in the new climates they occupied.

Demand for new kinds of antibiotics is surging, as drug-resistant and emerging infections are becoming an increasingly serious global health threat. Biologist Joshua Blodgett in Arts & Sciences discovered a new candidate for drug development from bioactive compounds in a soil bacterium. The findings are reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Acclaimed soprano Angel Blue, fresh from starring roles in the Metropolitan Opera’s “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” and “Porgy and Bess,” will present an intimate recital April 24 as part of the Great Artists Series at Washington University in St. Louis.

Using Gallup survey data from 2000-2019 spanning across four presidential administrations, political scientists in Arts & Sciences find anxiety about crime, race and the president’s political party influence whether Americans hold presidents accountable for crime.

More than 5,000 St. Louisans have died during the COVID-19 pandemic. On Saturday, April 23, a community-wide memorial service, organized by WashU’s Rebecca Messbarger, will take place in Forest Park. The event will include original music, guest speakers and the ceremonial lighting of 1,500 lanterns around the waters of the Grand Basin.

Alexander Thompson, a postdoctoral research associate in earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, updated simulations from an important climate model to more accurately reflect the role of a greener Sahara and the coniferous and deciduous forests of the mid-latitudes and the Arctic.

Diana Montaño, assistant professor of history in Arts & Sciences, has won the Alfred B. Thomas Award for her book “Electrifying Mexico: Technology and the Transformation of a Modern City.”

Biologist Arpita Bose explains the importance of wetlands and the microorganisms living there to capture carbon — and to possibly provide solutions for a clean energy future

How did alumna Freid Brown end up the first woman to lead a chartered university in Kenya? According to Brown, it wasn’t by design.