Author: Diana Lutz

Timothy A. Wencewicz, assistant professor of chemistry in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has been selected as a Cottrell Scholar by the Research Corporation for Science Advancement.

Star-shaped cells called astrocytes, long considered boring, “support cells,” are finally coming into their own. To everyone’s surprise they even play an important role in the body’s master clock, which schedules everything from the release of hormones to the onset of sleepiness.

A four-year study of one rare and one common lupine growing in coastal dunes showed that a native mouse steals most of the rare lupines seeds while they are still attached to the plant. The mouse is a “subsidized species,” given cover for nocturnal forays by European beachgrass, originally planted to stabilize the dunes.

William B. McKinnon, professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, will deliver the McDonnell Distinguished Lecture on Wednesday, March 29, on the Danforth Campus of Washington University in St. Louis.

In celebration of the 10th anniversary of the journal Bayesian Analysis, a committee of its former and current editors named a paper by Nan Lin, associate professor of mathematics in Arts & Sciences, and former doctoral student Qing Li “the most promising paper published in the journal in the last five years.”

Five researchers at Washington University in St. Louis are being honored as outstanding scientists by the Academy of Science-St. Louis. University recipients of this year’s honors are faculty members Stephen Beverley, Liviu Mirica, Kater Murch, Edward Spitznagel and Peter Wyse Jackson.

By growing phytoplankton called coccolithophores in the lab, scientists were able to understand the large biological overprint on the climate signal encoded by their remains, clearing the way for their use as climate proxies.

As an 8-year-old, Richard Vierstra tried out 190 of the 200 experiments in “The Golden Book of Chemistry.” As an adult, he has taken on the much harder task of designing experiments to reveal the secret chemistry of plants.

Here, in celebration of Valentine’s Day, we present another of the paradoxes, sometimes called the Picky Suitor problem: Can you guess the odds that you will find your one and only among the billions of people on the planet?

Jacob Schaefer, the Charles Allen Thomas Professor of Chemistry in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, was honored at a symposium and banquet organized by the St. Louis Section of the American Chemical Society and held Jan. 6.