Author: Diana Lutz

John E. McCarthy, chair of mathematics and the Spencer T. Olin Professor in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, received the 2016 G. de B. Robinson Award in December — along with co-author Jim Agler of the University of California, San Diego — for an outstanding paper contributed to the Canadian Journal of Mathematics.

Jonathan Barnes, assistant professor of chemistry in Arts & Sciences, co-wrote profiles of Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Sir J. Fraser Stoddart, and Bernard L. Feringa, the 2016 Nobel laureates in Chemistry, for a series in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) highlighting the discoveries of the award winners.

Michael Wysession, professor of earth and planetary sciences at Washington University in St. Louis,  is the lead author on several high-school and middle-school textbooks and videos in physical science and earth science, co-authored a kindergarten through eighth grade national-science program, and also is a co-author on a leading geophysics undergraduate and graduate college textbook. He […]

Joan E. Strassmann is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Charles Rebstock Professor of Biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, where she studies the evolution of conflict and cooperation. She writes a popular blog on becoming a biology professor with the goal of diversifying the professoriate. […]

Michael S. Kinch, associate vice chancellor and professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics in the School of Medicine at Washington University in St. Louis, is director of the Centers for Research Innovation in Biotechnology & Drug Discovery at the university. He is also author of the newly published “Prescription for Change,” an analysis of the looming crisis in the pharmaceutical industry.

The general public has a sense that something is amiss with the pharmaceutical industry, but few might consider it in a state of collapse. Washington University’s Michael Kinch tries to convince otherwise in “A Prescription for Change,” his history and review of the industry. 

A team of seismologists analyzing the data from 671 earthquakes that occurred between 30 and 280 miles beneath the Earth’s surface in the Pacific Plate as it descended into the Tonga Trench were surprised to find a zone of intense earthquake activity in the downgoing slab. The pattern of the activity along the slab provided strong evidence that the earthquakes are sparked by the release of water at depth.

Do big-brained creatures steal energy for them from other organs or eat more to supply this expensive tissue? New work in large-brained fish suggests skimping elsewhere is not enough to meet the energy demands of an extreme brain.

A Washington University physicist practiced at finding tiny diamonds in stardust from the pre-solar universe has repeatedly failed to find them in Younger Dryas sedimentary layers, effectively discrediting the hypothesis that an exploding comet caused the sudden climate reversal at the end of the last Ice Age.

The island of Madagascar off the coast of Africa was largely unexplored seismically until recently. The first broadband seismic images of the island help solve a longstanding mystery: why are there volcanoes far from any tectonic boundary?