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Is your toddler ready for reading lessons?
Even before they can read, children as young as three years of age are beginning to understand how a written word is different than a simple drawing — a nuance that could provide an important early...
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The secret life of bee genes
If a worker behaves altruistically and helps rear her sisters’ offspring, she will ensure that her matrigenes — those genes she inherits from her queen mother — are passed on to the next generation....
View ArticleHow our engineers are solving the world’s water problems
We take for granted that when we turn on a faucet in our homes or businesses that clean, fresh, drinkable water will be available in a seemingly endless supply. But in the last several years, clean...
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Antibiotics: Thinking outside the vial
Rainbow of colors is created by different concentrations of siderophores, molecules secreted by bacteria to steal iron from a host during an infection. (Credit: Shangwen Luo/ University of Illinois at...
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Calcium carbonate: Tumor-fighting weapon
Engineers at Washington University in St. Louis found a way to keep a cancerous tumor from growing by using nanoparticles of the main ingredient in common antacid tablets. The research team, led by...
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Record Missouri flood manmade calamity
Intersection of Interstate 44 and Route 141 in St. Louis County, Mo., on Dec. 30, 2015. Water levels more than 4 feet higher than previous record floods closed a 20-mile stretch of the highway. (Photo:...
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The jaws of a nutcracker? Not this human ancestor
Research published in 2012 garnered international attention by suggesting that a possible early human ancestor had lived on a diverse woodland diet including hard foods mixed in with tree bark, fruit,...
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Memory test: Which president is this?
Ask Americans to name the former U.S. president whose face currently graces the U.S. $10 dollar bill and most will be quick to answer Alexander Hamilton. Sure, it’s a trick question. But a new study...
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Why animals have fur, blubber and big ears
Bird keeping warm in the winter by fluffing up. Body size isn’t the only factor that determines whether an animal can keep warm in the cold. How do birds and mammals maintain near-constant body...
View ArticleThree Questions: Nobel laureate W.E. Moerner
In 1989, alumnus W. E. Moerner, AB ’75, BS ’75, BS ’75, became the first scientist in the world to measure the light absorption of a single molecule, a task long thought to be impossible. Twenty-five...
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Why animals have fur, blubber and big ears
Bird keeping warm in the winter by fluffing up. Body size isn’t the only factor that determines whether an animal can keep warm in the cold. How do birds and mammals maintain near-constant body...
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Shedding light on the day-night cycle
New research sheds light on how the rhythms of daily life are encoded in the brain. Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have discovered that different groups of...
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Seventy generations of bacteria
When the first antibiotics became available 70 years ago, they were often described as miracles of human ingenuity, rather like plastics or bright permanent dyes, which were discovered at roughly the...
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Wearing of the green
Everyone associates the shamrock with St. Patrick’s Day. St. Patrick, Ireland’s patron saint, we all learned at some point, used the plant with the three-lobed leaf to explain the Holy Trinity to his...
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Migratory birds: Hidden in plain sight
“The Danforth Campus of Washington University in St. Louis, as well as the nearby parks, are migrant traps,” said Randy Korotev, a lunar geochemist and, by reputation, one of the university’s most...
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Better understanding biorhythms
An electrical and systems engineer at Washington University in St. Louis has designed a method that, figuratively, forces a leopard to change its spots. Jr-Shin Li Jr-Shin Li, the Das Family...
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Survival of the hardest-working
A team of engineers at Washington University in St. Louis discovered a way to improve production of biofuels, pharmaceuticals, materials and other useful chemicals by capitalizing on the work ethic of...
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Challenging an old idea
Cancer cells are defined by their ability for uncontrolled growth, one cell quickly becoming two becoming many. “It’s a fascinating process,” said Gary Patti, associate professor of chemistry in Arts...
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Trap and neutralize: A new way to clean contaminated groundwater
A team of researchers from Washington University in St. Louis have helped discover a new chemical method to immobilize uranium in contaminated groundwater, which could lead to more precise and...
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Are we there yet?
National flags mark the entrance to the 21st Conference of the Nations on climate change in Paris. On Dec. 12, 2015, Cameron Pulley, a graduating senior at Washington University in St. Louis, boarded...
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